It is a located some 15 kilometers north of Gothenburg. Surte was the hometown of Alexander Samuelsson, who has often been mistaken for being the creator of the legendary contour Coca-Cola bottle. This error is often made since he was the one who was sent to file for the contour bottle's patent. This resulted in his name getting put on the 1915 patent.

The international Grand Master of chess Gideon Stahlberg, one of the world's strongest players in the 1940s, was born and is buried in Surte.