Bamse – Världens starkaste björn (Swedish for 'Bamse – The World's Strongest Bear') is a Swedish cartoon created by Rune Andréasson. The highly popular children's cartoon first emerged as a series of television short films as well as a weekly half-page Sunday strip in 1966, before being published periodically in its own comic magazine since 1973.

Andréasson did all the artwork himself until 1975 and wrote all the comics until 1990. Francisco Tora did all the illustrations from 1976 until he was joined by Bo Michanek in 1983. Several new writers and illustrators were hired in the early 1990s, including Claes Reimerthi, Olof Siverbo, Johan Wanloo and Tony Cronstam. Andréasson continued to do the magazine cover illustrations until 1992.

The series somewhat changed direction when Bamse had children, specifically triplets, in 1982. He had a fourth child in 1986, and his friend Lille Skutt had one at the same time; this saw the series focus more on family, while also discussing other values such as gender equality. In 1989, the character Skalman noticed that Bamse's fourth child Brumma had some intellectual disability, later defined as her being on the Autism spectrum, which again brought up the subject of equality. The children did develop in real time within the magazine, but seem to have been fixed in age since around 1990. They are now around nine years old, in a narratively advantageous eternal state as third-graders.

Both the early Sunday strips and the early magazines have since been reprinted as glossy hardbound volumes.

In 1998, the theme park Bamses Värld ('Bamse's World') started as an attraction at the Kolmården Wildlife Park, with theater performances, restaurants and houses from the comic.

The magazine has educational goals. On special "school" pages, the characters educate the reader about animals, cultures, the Universe, and other subjects. They often deal with superstition, and Skalman's sceptical views ("I only believe in what I know") wins over those of his more naive friends. On the other hand, beings like trolls, tomtar and dragons exist on a very real plane in most of the stories. As the series has evolved, the values expressed have become more general and less ideological. A fact sheet written and published by Andreasson in 1983 following a trip to the People's Republic of China became controversial as it seemed to praise Mao Zedong's dictatorial rule as a "liberation" and claimed that "nobody's starving anymore" in China under Communist single-party rule. It was later edited heavily when the adventure was reprinted in 2004.

Bamse and his friends are very clear about their views. They are strongly opposed to racism, bullying and violence. Bamse is not only the strongest bear in the world, but also the kindest, often repeating his slogan "Nobody gets better from being beaten". Bamse's own world seems to have strong implications of anarchism or libertarian socialism, combining private ownership with communitarian solidarity (from most of the characters), though a single policeman, Pontus Kask (named for his classic-style policeman's helmet, or kask in Swedish) and a small prison exists.

The original villain, a black wolf simply called Vargen ('The Wolf'), became a friend of Bamse after consistently being treated kindly. The only villain that is depicted as unredeemable is Krösus Sork ('Croesus Vole'), a crude capitalist who will do practically anything for money. Later, the fox Reinard Räv ('Reinard the Fox') was introduced, which contradicted this earlier narrative. While shown as on the edge of society, Reinard is intelligent but uses his skills and efforts at disrupting the social order as a good in itself. By enjoying turning people "on the edge" to a life of crime he displays outright antisocial characteristics, roughly mirroring Batman's antagonist The Joker or Shakespeare's Iago in this regard.