Portal:Denmark

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Denmark is the smallest and southernmost of the Nordic countries. Unified in the mid 10th century, it is also the oldest. Located north of its only land neighbour, Germany, south-west of Sweden, and south of Norway, it is located in northern Europe. From a cultural point of view, Denmark belongs to the family of Scandinavian countries although it is not located on the Scandinavian Peninsula. The national capital is Copenhagen.

Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea. The country consists of a large peninsula, Jutland, which borders Schleswig-Holstein; many islands, most notably Zealand, Funen, Vendsyssel-Thy, Lolland, and Bornholm; and hundreds of minor islands often referred to as the Danish Archipelago. Denmark has historically controlled the approach to the Baltic Sea, and those waters are also known as the Danish Straits.

Denmark has been a constitutional monarchy since 1849 and is a parliamentary democracy. It became a member of the European Economic Community (now the European Union) in 1973. The Kingdom of Denmark also encompasses two off-shore territories, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, both of which enjoy wide-ranging home rule. The Danish monarchy is the oldest existing monarchy in Europe, and the national flag is the oldest state flag in continuous use.

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Hans Christian Ørsted (August 14, 1777 – March 9, 1851) was a Danish physicist and chemist, influenced by the thinking of Immanuel Kant. He is best known for discovering the relationship between electricity and magnetism known as electromagnetism.

From 1806, Ørsted was a professor at the University of Copenhagen. He was instrumental in the founding of the university's Faculty of Science shortly before his death. In the 1960's the main building complex of the university's new science campus was named in his honor.

Ørsted was the driving force behind the founding of the Technical University of Denmark in 1829 and served as its first director. The present-day department of applied electronics is named Ørsted·DTU in his honor.

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Christianshavns Kanal, Copenhagen, in morning light.

Photo credit: Mahlum

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Did you know

... that the work of Danish plant physiologist Peter Boysen Jensen paved the way to the discovery of the plant growth hormone, auxin?
... that development on the video game Expeditions: Rome was not affected by lockdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic because the developer was already split between Copenhagen and Istanbul?
... that members of the Trade Union Opposition Federation stormed the Copenhagen Stock Exchange?
... that Charles Winckler, a Danish national shot put and discus champion, won his only Olympic medal in a tug-of-war tournament?
... that the terracotta statue of George Washington by the Danish-American sculptor Nels N. Alling was entirely funded by the local Scandinavian community?
... that King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark were the parents of a Danish king, a British queen, a Greek king, and a Russian empress?
... that US general Tommy Franks reportedly did not have time to become an expert on the Danish Air Force?
... that Danish-born soprano Louise Janssen appeared at the Grand Théâtre de Lyon as Eva in the French premiere of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg?

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Brøndby IF is a Danish professional football (soccer) club based in the town of Brøndby, on the western outskirts of Copenhagen. The club is also known as Brøndbyernes Idrætsforening, or Brøndby and BIF for short. The club, founded in 1964 as a merger between two local Brøndby clubs, has won 10 national Danish football championship titles and five national Danish Cups, since the club joined the Danish top-flight football league in 1981. Brøndby is the most successful Danish club on the European scene, with a UEFA Cup semi-final the best ever Danish result in the European competitions. Furthermore the club was the first Danish club to qualify for the UEFA Champions League, during the 1998-99 tournament.

Since the founding of fellow Copenhagen club F.C. Copenhagen in 1992, the two clubs have had a fierce rivalry, and the so-called "New Firm" games between the two sides attract the biggest crowds in Danish football. With F.C. Copenhagen, Brøndby has consistently formed a duo which have won eleven of the last sixteen Danish Superliga championships, and from 1995 to 2006, the club did not finish below second spot in the league.

Brøndby have always played their games at Brøndby Stadium. Through the first years in the secondary Danish leagues, the stadium was little more than a grass field with an athletics track circling the field of play. Following the first years of success in the highest Danish league, the athletic track was discarded and a further 2,000 seats were installed on top of concrete stands that were built from 1989 to 1990.

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The Old Town in Aarhus is an open-air village museum consisting of 75 historical buildings collected from 20 townships in all parts of the country. In 1914 the museum opened for the first time as the worlds’ first open-air museum of its kind and till this day it remains one of just a few top rated Danish museums outside Copenhagen serving some 3.5 million visitors every year.

The museum buildings are organized into a small village of chiefly half-timbered structures originally erected between 1550 and the late 1800s in various parts of the country and later moved to Aarhus during the 1900s. There are several groceries, diners and workshops spread throughout the village with museum staff working in the roles of typical village figures i.e. merchant, blacksmith etc. adding to the illusion of a "living" village.