Introduction. A descriptive bibliometric study on a sub-national level with the aim to map a Swedish region's visibility and research collaboration during the observation period 1998-2006 was conducted. Method. Indicators and measures of research performance were constructed on basis of national standards. Results. Results show that the citation and publication patterns basically mirrored the national science and technology system, though some deviations were observed. The more influential science and technology fields were identified along with their more active regional producers of published research. A publication profile of the region was generated as well as a mapping of the balance between productivity and citation impact. Applying a research typology, different types of joint publishing and their relations to research areas were explored. Conclusions. The results are primarily of interest for local research policy but also of interest for a wider audience as a suggested method approach for similar regional assessment tasks.