Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0109/01090.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 22KB | 390 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01090}
$Pretitle{411}
$Title{Denmark
Facts About Denmark}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Henning Dehn Nielsen}
$Affiliation{Ministry of Foreign Affairs}
$Subject{denmark
danish
queen
danes
age
jutland
margrethe
prince
years
km}
$Date{1990}
$Log{Poul Schluter*0109001.scf
}
Country:     Denmark
Book:        Facts about Denmark
Author:      Henning Dehn Nielsen
Affiliation: Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Date:        1990

Facts About Denmark

[See Poul Schluter: Prime Minister of Denmark. Courtesy Embassy of Denmark,
Washington DC]

Foreword

     The purpose of this little book is to give you a brief introduction to
Denmark.

     We do this by inviting you on a short tour through Denmark and Danish
society and, on the way, relate a little about the country and its nature,
history, government, social and cultural relations, daily life and a whole lot
more.

     While far from being an in-depth description of Denmark, we hope that
through this booklet you will receive an inkling of how five million Danes go
about their lives.

     We wish you a good time on this little journey through our country.

UFFE ELLEMANN-JENSEN
Foreign Minister

Denmark - a Green Country in the Sea

     Hans Christian Andersen has written fairytales, which have been
translated into almost 100 languages and read by children and adults
throughout the world.

     But he also wrote poetry - not known by the world at large but loved by
all Danes - in which he praises his country and declares his love, as in the
following lines:

     "In Denmark I was born, 'tis there my home is, From there my roots, and
there my world extend. You Danish tongue, as soft as Mother's voice is, With
you my heartbeats O so sweetly blend".

     Andersen wrote further of the bracing Danish beaches, of the green
islands and of Jutland as the head of land separating on one side of the
Baltic and the Kattegat and on the other the North Sea.

     This picture of Denmark as a strongly varied land, both from a
geographical and scenic point of view, also applies today, but first some
of the salient facts regarding size and situation deserve to be mentioned:

     Denmark's total area is around 43,000 sq. km, equivalent to the size of
Switzerland or one-ninth of California, situated between 54 degrees 34' and
57 degrees 45' N. lat. and 8 degrees 5' and 15 degrees 12' E. long. If these
figures do not convey much, suffice it to say that Denmark is joined to the
European continent by a frontier with the Federal Republic of Germany;
otherwise its nearest neighbours are Sweden and Norway, lying respectively
just 20 km away over the Sound and approximately 200 km over the Skagerrak.
The distance to Britain measures about 500 km across the North Sea.

     Despite its very modest size, Denmark, as already mentioned, offers a
greater geographical variation than that found in many other countries. The
peninsula of Jutland is anchored to the central European mainland, but
otherwise Denmark is comprised of those green islands that Hans Christian
Andersen wrote about and there is an incredible amount of these, numbering no
fewer than 406 larger and smaller isles, of which 90 are inhabitated. The
largest are Zealand - with the capital of Copenhagen - Funen, the twin islands
of Lolland-Falster, and Bornholm in the Baltic, lying about 200 km east of the
rest of Denmark.

     This sharp land division has in relation to area created an unusually
long coastline of no less than 7,300 km, equivalent to, believe it or not,
one-sixth of the earth's circumference. This close proximity to the sea comes
naturally to the Danes themselves, but is seen by many foreign visitors as
something unusual and attractive. There have been cases of tourists from
Central Europe visiting Denmark for the sole reason of wandering along the
300 km of shore bordering the North Sea and stretching from the Danish-German
border to the tip of Jutland.

     Along the west coast of Jutland stretches an almost unbroken row of high,
denuded dunes, Mid-Jutland is characterized by moors, lakes and "mountains",
which do not approach a height of more than 170 metres, even if
Danes - somewhat exuberantly - describe one of them as "Sky Mountain". The
east coast of Jutland is indented with many inlets surrounded by woodland and
fertile agricultural land. Most of the bigger islands are a constant green
with good arable land and towns and villages nestled close to one another.
Exceptional is the rocky island of Bornholm, which geologically has more in
common with Sweden than Denmark. Denmark's climate, because of its variable
nature, is always a good topic for conversion. One is never certain whether a
new day will bring sun or rain. Many Danes would prefer more settled weather
conditions, but visiting foreigners, used perhaps to longer periods of warmth
or cold, often find the changeable Danish climate charming.

     It comes as no surprise that it has proved less than easy to link up
Denmark's traffic network, and many ferries and bridges are necessary to
accomplish this. Ferries accommodating up to 2,000 passengers and 300-400 cars
regularly sail between Zealand and Funen and between Zealand and Jutland, and
ever more impressive new bridges continue to be built. The latest of these
stretches for 3.3 km between Zealand and Falster, serving as a link for the
motorway between Scandinavia and West Germany.

     Parliament has approved a project to be carried out in the next years,
linking Zealand and Funen via a 20 km long bridge and tunnel network over
the Great Belt. The scheme has been discussed for many years, but large-scale
work has now begun, and all Danes look forward to the day when trains and cars
can begin to roll over the Great Belt, respectively from 1992 and 1996.

     Denmark has a population of just over 5.1 million, of whom 70 per cent
live in urban areas. The largest city is Copenhagen, with a population of 1.4
million in the entire metropolitan area. Arhus on the east coast of Jutland
is Denmark's second-largest city, with 254,000 inhabitants, followed by
Odense, the largest town on Funen, with 173,000 and Aalborg in North Jutland,
with 155,000.

     The autonomous regions of the Kingdom of Denmark - Greenland and the
Faroe Islands - are discussed in later chapters.

Brief Tour Through 12,000 Years

     The desire by most people to deepen their knowledge of a small foreign
country's history is probably strictly limited, but a brief and comfortable
trip several thousand years back into Denmark's past can be taken, if one
feels inclined to visit the National Museum in Copenhagen.

     Here one can see rich collections of the weapons and implements of
flint - arrow-heads, axes, swords and much more besides - crafted and used in
the everyday life of the peoples of Stone Age Denmark from around 10,000 to
1,800 B.C. They lived from hunting, as well as gradually a little farming, and
their places of dwelling and remains have been found at many sites throughout
the country. They buried their dead in stone cairns, often comprised of a
number of upright stones topped by one huge capstone, which can still be seen
in landscapes today.

     Bronze came to Denmark around 1,500 B.C., imported from southern Europe.
Weapons, ornaments and sacrificial offerings could be crafted from this in a
much more artistic manner than with flint's limited means, and a tour through
the National Museum provides illustrious examples of what the Danish craftsmen
of the Bronze Age could produce. One of the  masterpieces is the Sun Chariot,
which was made around 1,500 B.C. or thereabouts and comprises a circular disk
partially gilded, representing the life-giving sun, drawn by a bronze horse.
The chariot, used as a gift of sacrifice to the sun, was buried in a Zealand
moor, where it was discovered in 1902.

     Not far from the Sun Chariot in the National Museum are the lurs, which
also date from the Bronze Age and are the world's oldest musical instruments.
These gracefully curved bronze horns are