Portal:Denmark

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Denmark is the smallest and southernmost of the Nordic countries. Unified in the 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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Rasmus Rask (Danish pronunciation: [ˈʁɑsmus ˈʁɑsk]) (November 22, 1787 - November 14, 1832), Danish was a scholar and philologist, was born at Brændekilde on the island of Funen.

Rask studied at the University of Copenhagen, and at once showed remarkable talent for the acquisition of languages. In 1808 he was appointed assistant keeper of the university library, and some years afterwards professor of literary history. In 1811 he published, in Danish, his Introduction to the Grammar of the Icelandic and other Ancient Northern Languages, from printed and manuscript materials accumulated by his predecessors in the same field of research.

The reputation which Rask thus acquired recommended him to the Arna-Magnaean Institution, by which he was employed as editor of the Icelandic Lexicon (1814) of Björn Halldórsson, which had long remained in manuscript. Rask visited Iceland, where he remained from 1813 to 1815, mastering the language and familiarizing himself with the literature, manners and customs of the natives. To the interest with which they inspired him may probably be attributed the establishment at Copenhagen, early in 1816, of the Icelandic Literary Society of which he was the first president.

In October 1816 Rask left Denmark on a literary expedition at the cost of the king, to prosecute inquiries into the languages of the East, and collect manuscripts for the university library at Copenhagen. He proceeded first to Sweden, where he remained two years, in the course of which he made an excursion into Finland to study the language. Here he published, in Swedish, his Anglo-Saxon Grammar in 1817. In 1818 there appeared at Copenhagen, in Danish, an Essay on the Origin of the Ancient Scandinavian or Icelandic Tongue, in which he raced the affinity of that idiom to the other European languages, particularly Latin and Greek.

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A Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) yawning. Pictured in the Afrika exhibition at Copenhagen Zoo.

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The Great Belt Fixed Link (Danish: Den faste Storebæltsforbindelse) is the fixed link between the Danish islands of Zealand and Funen across the Great Belt. It consists of a road suspension bridge and railway tunnel between Zealand and the islet Sprogø, as well as a box girder bridge between Sprogø and Funen. The "Great Belt Bridge" (Danish: Storebæltsbroen) commonly refers to the suspension bridge, although it may also be used to mean the girder bridge or the link in its entirety. The suspension bridge, known as the Eastern Bridge, has the world's second longest free span (1.6 km).

The link replaces the ferries which had been the primary means of crossing the Great Belt for more than 100 years. After decades of speculation and debate, the decision to construct the link was made in 1986; while it was originally intended to complete the railway link three years before opening the road connection, the link was opened to rail traffic in 1997 and road traffic in 1998. At an estimated cost of DKK 21.4 billion (1988 prices), the link is the largest construction project in Danish history.

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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.