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Where is Copenhagen Denmark located?

World Map of Denmark

Copenhagen

(Danish: København) is the capital and largest city of Denmark, and the name of the municipality (Danish, kommune) in which it resides. It is also the name of a county in Denmark, Copenhagen County— but the city and municipality are not a part of this county.

The contemporary Danish name for the city is a corruption of the original designation for the city, "Købmandshavn", or "Merchants' Harbour" in Danish. The English word for the city is derived from its German name, "Kopenhagen", but note that the 3rd syllable is pronounced "hay" in English, not "hah".

Copenhagen is home to the national parliament, government, and monarchy, which are all situated in the heart of the city.

Copenhagen, Denmark


City seal
Location in Denmark
Area - Total - Water	526 km² xxx km² xx%
Population - City (2004) - Metropolitan - Density	502,204 1,116,979 954/km2 [including water] xxx/km2 [land only]
Time zone	Eastern: UTC+1
Latitude Longitude	55°43' N 12°34' E

Copenhagen municipality

Copenhagen is one of only three Danish municipalities, which do not belong to any of the Counties of Denmark— the others are Frederiksberg and Bornholm.

The municipality covers an area of 88 km², and has a total population of 502,362 (2005). Lord Mayor of Copenhagen is Lars Engberg, a member of the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterne) political party, who is head of the Finance Committee. Other mayors are Martin Geertsen (Cultural and Recreational Committee), Per Bregengaard (Education and Youth Committee), Inger Marie Bruun-Vierø (Health and Care Committee), Bo asmus-Kjeldgaard (Family and Labout Market Committee), Søren Pind (Building and Construction Committee), and Winnie Berndtson (Energy, Water and Environment Committee).

The seat of government is Copenhagen City Hall (Rådhus).

Neighboring municipalities are Gentofte, Gladsaxe and Herlev to the north, Rødovre and Hvidovre to the west, and Tårnby to the south. Frederiksberg is located as an enclave in the municipality, and is thus surrounded by Copenhagen.

Copenhagen municipality will not be merged with other municipalities by January 1, 2007 as the result of nationwide Kommunalreformen ("The Municipality Reform" of 2007).

History of Copenhagen

Main article: History of Copenhagen

Copenhagen was founded around year 1000 by Sweyn I Forkbeard and his son Canute the Great (Knud den Store). It was only a fishing village until the middle of the 12th century when it grew in importance after coming into the possession of the Bishop Absalon, who fortified it in 1167. The excellent harbour encouraged Copenhagen's growth until it became an important centre of commerce (hence its name). It was repeatedly attacked by the Hanseatic League as the Germans took notice. In 1254, it received its charter as a city under Bishop Jakob Erlandsen.

Copenhagen circa 1895

During 1658-59 it withstood a severe siege by the Swedes under Charles X. In 1801 a British fleet under Admiral Parker fought a major battle, the Battle of Copenhagen, with the Danish navy in Copenhagen harbour. It was during this battle Lord Nelson famously "put the telescope to the blind eye" in order not to see Admiral Parker's signal to cease fire. When a British expeditionary force bombarded Copenhagen with Congreve rockets in 1807, to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon, the city suffered great damage and hundreds of people were killed.

During World War II Copenhagen was occupied by German troops along with the rest of the country from 9th of April 1940 until 4th of May 1945. The city has grown greatly since the war.

Kongens Nytorv in the Wintertime

Since the summer 2000, the cities of Copenhagen and Malmö have been connected by a toll bridge/tunnel (Øresund Bridge), which allows both rail and road passengers to cross. It was inaugurated in July 2000 by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. As a result, Copenhagen has become the centre of a larger metropolitan area which spans both nations. The construction of the bridge has led to a large number of changes to the public transportation system and the extensive redevelopment of Amager, south of the main city. However, the bridge has not been as widely used as was originally hoped, likely due to the high tolls, slowing the planned integration of the region. Another hindrance to the integration of the region is the lack of a commonly acceptable currency throughout the area. It is still difficult to pay with either nation's currency in the other country, with the exceptions of Copenhagen and Malmö, where it's possible to use either DKK or SEK in a growing number of shops, restaurants, etc.

Nyhavn

Geography

Copenhagen is located on the eastern shore of the island of Zealand (Sjælland) and partly on the island of Amager. Copenhagen faces to the east the Øresund, the strait of water that separates Denmark from Sweden, and that connects the North Sea with the Baltic Sea. On the Swedish side of the sound directly across from Copenhagen, lie the towns of Malmö and Landskrona.

1,116,979 people live in metropolitan Copenhagen (Storkøbenhavn). Of these 502,204 live in the Municipality of Copenhagen, 91,721 in the Municipality of Frederiksberg, 68,704 in the Municipality of Gentofte and another 454,350 in other nearby municipalities.

An even larger metropolitan region is known as the Danish Capital Region (Hovedstadsregionen), which consists of the municipalities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg, and the counties of Copenhagen, Frederiksborg and Roskilde. The population of Hovedstadsregionen is 1,823,109.

Copenhagen is also a part of the Øresund region, which consists of the eastern part of Zealand island in Denmark and the western part of Skåne in Sweden. The Øresund region has a population of 3.6 million people.

The city itself is divided into 15 statistical and tax districts (bydele):

Language

Danish (dansk) is a North Germanic language (also called Scandinavian languages), a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 5.5 million people mainly in Denmark including some 50,000 people in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, where it holds the status of minority language. Danish also holds official status and is a mandatory subject in school in the former Danish colonies of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, that now enjoy limited autonomy. On Iceland, which was a part of Denmark until 1944, Danish is still the second foreign language taught in schools (although a few learn Swedish or Norwegian instead).

The language started diverging from the common ancestor language Old Norse sometime during the 13th century and became more distinct from the other emerging Scandinavian national languages with the first bible translation in 1550, establishing an orthography differing from that of Swedish, though written Danish is usually far easier for Swedes to understand than the spoken language. Modern spoken Danish is characterized by a very strong tendency of reduction of many sounds making it particularly difficult for foreigners to understand and properly master, not just by reputation but by sheer phonetic reality.

Culture

The statue of The Little Mermaid, a monument to Hans Christian Andersen, in Copenhagen harbour.

Danish newspapers rank Copenhagen as one of the world's best cities in which to live, despite the high cost of living.

Strøget, a pedestrian shopping street in central Copenhagen was inaugurated in 1961. Copenhagen's extensive pedestrian network has been developed over the last 40 years through the work of architect and professor Jan Gehl.

The Copenhagen Jazz Festival is a popular annual event that is the result of a significant jazz scene having existed for many years. It developed significantly when a number of American jazz musicians such as Ben Webster, Thad Jones, Richard Boone, Ernie Wilkins, Kenny Drew, Ed Thigpen, Bob Rockwell and others came to Copenhagen beginning in the 1960s.

Sport

Copenhagen has a wide variety of sport teams. FC København is one of Denmark's best football teams. They have won the Danish Championship three times in the past five seasons. FC København plays in the Danish national stadium, Parken.

In the next best league plays HIK, Frem, Brønshøj and Skjold.

There is both a men's and a women's handball team, and both teams play in the highest league.

Cuisine

Copenhagen offers a great variety of fine restaurants and modest eateries with open sandwiches (called "smørrebrød") as the most known dish. Also, Copenhagen is known for the hotdog stands found throughout the city.

Lately, immigration from the Middle East and North Africa has made dishes like kebab and falafel as popular as more traditional Scandinavian fast foods.

Transportation in Copenhagen

Copenhagen S-train

Copenhagen has a public transportation system, consisting of commuter trains (called "S-Trains" (S-tog)), buses, and a new but still small metro. The S-trains form the basis of the transportation network, stretching to most areas of metropolitan Copenhagen, with their main hub at Copenhagen Central Station (København H). Some regional trains supplement the S-train services with lines extending further such as to the Copenhagen Airport, Elsinore, and Malmö. The entire system is governed by the same overall authority and tickets are transferable from one mode to another. The region is divided up into 99 zones which govern the cost of a ticket. Travelling through two zones is less expensive than three, four, or more zones. A trip of seven or more zones costs a base rate. Ticket prices are high and have increased substantially in recent years leading to a decrease in passenger numbers. In fact the percentage of trips made on public transportation in Copenhagen is quite low by northern European standards.

An extensive road system is also in place for private automobiles, and the city's bicycle paths are extensive and well-used. The city provides public bicycles which can be found throughout the downtown area and used with a returnable deposit of 20 kroner. Bicycle paths are often separated from the main automobile lanes and have their own signal systems.

To read more about Denmark in general please click the following link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark


DenmarksFlag above & Danish Royal Seal to the right.