Umeå (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈʉːmɛo] ( listen); Finnish: Uumaja, Northern Sami: Ubmi) is a university town in northern Sweden. It is the seat of Umeå Municipality and the capital of Västerbotten County. The city is located at the Ume River.

Umeå is the biggest city in Norrland and the twelfth biggest in Sweden, with 79,594 inhabitants in 2010. The municipality has 115,229 inhabitants as of 2010. When the university was established in 1965, growth sped up, and the number of housing has doubled in the last 30 years. As of 2011^[update], 700 to 800 new apartments are constructed each year.

Umeå is a center of education, technical and medical research in Sweden, with two universities and over 30,000 students. The city is elected European Capital of Culture of 2014.

The first written mention of Umeå is from the 14th century. The northern parts of Sweden, including the counties of Västerbotten and Norrbotten, were settled by Sami people before this time, though not necessarily in the city's exact location. Umeå in its first form was a parish with a wooden church and trade post located in the section of town now known as Backen (or Kyrkbacken). Its location near the coast and on a river was probably one of the reasons that people chose to settle there.