The Embassy of Sweden in Washington, D.C. is Sweden's diplomatic mission in the United States. The Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C. is one of Sweden's largest diplomatic missions with more than fifty employees. Ambassador since 2017 is Karin Olofsdotter. Sweden also has a Consulate General in New York City and a number of Honorary Consulates General in the United States. Since 2006, the embassy is located in the House of Sweden building on the Potomac River. History Swedish-American relations have a long history stretching back to the 17th century when Sweden in 1638 established the colony of New Sweden in the state of Delaware. In 1782, diplomatic relations were established by Samuel Gustaf Hermelin. Sweden was the first country, in addition to the states that were directly involved in the American Revolutionary War (the United Kingdom and France), to recognize the United States in 1783. In 1783 the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Sweden and the United States was signed. A break in diplomatic relations occurred in 1973 when the then Ambassador Hubert de Bèsche and his newly elected successor Yngve Möller were declared undesirable in the United States as a result of a diplomatic crisis that followed Olof Palme's statement about the Hanoi bombings in December 1972. In 1974 the new Swedish Ambassador Wilhelm Wachtmeister took office and held the post until 1989. Wachtmeister was eventually given the title Dean of the Diplomatic Corps (Doyen) as the longest serving Ambassador in Washington, D.C. Other famous diplomats who held the Ambassador post are Jan Eliasson, Rolf Ekéus and Anders Thunborg. The former embassy building was located at 2006 N Street, N.W., in a Victorian building at 2249 R Street, N.W., from 1921 to 1971 and in Suite 1200, Watergate Six Hundred, 600 New Hampshire Avenue along the banks of the Potomac River. When the rent in the Watergate complex became too high, the embassy was moved to a couple of floors at 1501 M Street, N.W. in Downtown. The idea had been for several decades to acquire an own embassy building but the idea had come unstuck because of few suitable sites. In August 2006, the embassy returned to the banks of the Potomac River when the new embassy building, the House of Sweden, opened on the waterfront in Georgetown. The site was bought by the National Property Board of Sweden from the Swede Kate Novak's husband Alan Novak's