“The victim and the offender may have been in a relationship,” said Calle Persson, the police’s information officer in the region told the TT news agency.
The police received the alarm at 6.41am on Sunday when the woman was found dead outdoors just outside Tingsryd.
“The woman was dead when the ambulance and police arrived,” said Persson.
Based on the woman's injuries, police initiated a murder investigation. A man was arrested shortly afterwards on suspicion of murder.
By early Sunday afternoon the man had not yet been interrogated.
Tingsryd is a small town of around 3,000 inhabitants located 450km south of Stockholm.