Kronenburg Estates S.L.

Denmark, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, is a Nordic country and a sovereign state. The southernmost of the Scandinavian nations, it is south-west of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. The Kingdom of Denmark also comprises two autonomous constituent countries in the North Atlantic Ocean: the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Denmark proper consists of a peninsula, Jutland, and an archipelago of 443 named islands, with the largest being Zealand, Funen and the North Jutlandic Island. The islands are characterised by flat, arable land and sandy coasts, low elevation and a temperate climate. Denmark has a total area of 42,924 km2 , land area of 42,394 km2 , and the total area including Greenland and the Faroe Islands is 2,210,579 km2 , and a population of 5,781,190 (as of 2018).

Geography

Located in Northern Europe, Denmark consists of the peninsula of Jutland and 443 named islands (1,419 islands above 100 square metres in total). Of these, 74 are inhabited (January 2015), with the largest being Zealand, the North Jutlandic Island, and Funen. The island of Bornholm is located east of the rest of the country, in the Baltic Sea. Many of the larger islands are connected by bridges; the Øresund Bridge connects Zealand with Sweden; the Great Belt Bridge connects Funen with Zealand; and the Little Belt Bridge connects Jutland with Funen. Ferries or small aircraft connect to the smaller islands. The four cities with populations over 100,000 are the capital Copenhagen on Zealand; Aarhus and Aalborg in Jutland; and Odense on Funen.

The country occupies a total area of 42,924 square kilometres. The area of inland water is 700 km2, variously stated as from 500 – 700 km2. Lake Arresø northwest of Copenhagen is the largest lake. The size of the land area cannot be stated exactly since the ocean constantly erodes and adds material to the coastline, and because of human land reclamation projects (to counter erosion). Post-glacial rebound raises the land by a bit less than 1 cm per year in the north and east, extending the coast. A circle enclosing the same area as Denmark would be 234 kilometres in diameter with a circumference of 742 km. It shares a border of 68 kilometres with Germany to the south and is otherwise surrounded by 8,750 km of tidal shoreline (including small bays and inlets). No location in Denmark is farther from the coast than 52 km. On the south-west coast of Jutland, the tide is between 1 and 2 m, and the tideline moves outward and inward on a 10 km stretch. Denmark's territorial waters total 105,000 square kilometres.

Denmark's northernmost point is Skagen's point (the north beach of the Skaw) at 57° 45' 7" northern latitude; the southernmost is Gedser point (the southern tip of Falster) at 54° 33' 35" northern latitude; the westernmost point is Blåvandshuk at 8° 4' 22" eastern longitude; and the easternmost point is Østerskær at 15° 11' 55" eastern longitude. This is in the archipelago Ertholmene 18 kilometres north-east of Bornholm. The distance from east to west is 452 kilometres, from north to south 368 kilometres. Bay of Aarhus viewed from southern Djursland

The country is flat with little elevation, having an average height above sea level of 31 metres. The highest natural point is Møllehøj, at 170.86 metres. A sizeable portion of Denmark's terrain consists of rolling plains whilst the coastline is sandy, with large dunes in northern Jutland. Although once extensively forested, today Denmark largely consists of arable land. It is drained by a dozen or so rivers, and the most significant include the Gudenå, Odense, Skjern, Suså and Vidå—a river that flows along its southern border with Germany.

The Kingdom of Denmark includes two overseas territories, both well to the west of Denmark: Greenland, the world's largest island, and the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. These territories are self-governing and form part of the Danish Realm.

Climate

Denmark has a temperate climate, characterised by mild winters, with mean temperatures in January of 1.5 °C, and cool summers, with a mean temperature in August of 17.2 °C. The most extreme temperatures recorded in Denmark, since 1874 when recordings began, was 36.4 °C in 1975 and −31.2 °C in 1982. Denmark has an average of 179 days per year with precipitation, on average receiving a total of 765 millimetres per year; autumn is the wettest season and spring the driest. The position between a continent and an ocean means that weather often changes.

Because of Denmark's northern location, there are large seasonal variations in daylight. There are short days during the winter with sunrise coming around 8:45 am and sunset 3:45 pm (standard time), as well as long summer days with sunrise at 4:30 am and sunset at 10 pm (daylight saving time).

Demographics

The population of Denmark, as defined by Statistics Denmark, was estimated in January 2017 to be 5,748,769. The median age is 41.4 years, with 0.97 males per female. The total fertility rate is 1.73 children born per woman; despite the low birth rate, the population is still growing at an average annual rate of 0.22%. The World Happiness Report frequently ranks Denmark's population as the happiest in the world. This has been attributed to the country's highly regarded education and health care systems, and its low level of income inequality.

Denmark is an historically homogeneous nation. However, as with its Scandinavian neighbours, Denmark has recently transformed from a nation of net emigration, up until World War II, to a nation of net immigration. Today, immigration to Denmark consists particularly of asylum seekers and persons who arrive as family dependants. In addition, Denmark annually receives a number of citizens from Western countries, notably Nordic countries, the EU, and North America, who seek residency to work or study for a definite period of time. Recently, substantial numbers of workers—several tens of thousands—from the new EU accession countries, especially Poland and the Baltic nations, have arrived to perform menial labour in construction, agriculture, consumer industries, and cleaning. Overall, the net migration rate in 2015 was 2.2 migrant(s)/1,000 population, comparable to the United Kingdom and well below other North European countries, except the Baltic states.

There are no official statistics on ethnic groups, but according to 2016 figures from Statistics Denmark, approximately 86.9% of the population was of Danish descent, defined as having at least one parent who was born in Denmark and has Danish citizenship. The remaining 13.1% were of a foreign background, defined as immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants. With the same definition, the most common countries of origin were Poland, Turkey, Germany, Iraq, Romania, Syria, Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Balkan states.

Languages

Danish is the de facto national language of Denmark. Faroese and Greenlandic are the official languages of the Faroe Islands and Greenland respectively. German is a recognised minority language in the area of the former South Jutland County (now part of the Region of Southern Denmark), which was part of the German Empire prior to the Treaty of Versailles. Danish and Faroese belong to the North Germanic (Nordic) branch of the Indo-European languages, along with Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish. There is a limited degree of mutual intelligibility between Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. Danish is more distantly related to German, which is a West Germanic language. Greenlandic or "Kalaallisut" belongs to the Eskimo–Aleut languages; it is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada, such as Inuktitut, and entirely unrelated to Danish.

A large majority (86%) of Danes speak English as a second language, generally with a high level of proficiency. German is the second-most spoken foreign language, with 47% reporting a conversational level of proficiency. Denmark had 25,900 native speakers of German in 2007 (mostly in the South Jutland area).

Religion

Christianity is the dominant religion in Denmark. In January 2017, 75.9% of the population of Denmark were members of the Church of Denmark (Den Danske Folkekirke), the officially established church, which is Protestant in classification and Lutheran in orientation. This is down 1.0% compared to the year earlier and 1.9% down compared to two years earlier. Despite the high membership figures, only 3% of the population regularly attend Sunday services and only 19% of Danes consider religion to be an important part of their life.

The Constitution states that a member of the Royal Family must be a member of the Church of Denmark, though the rest of the population is free to adhere to other faiths. In 1682 the state granted limited recognition to three religious groups dissenting from the Established Church: Roman Catholicism, the Reformed Church and Judaism, although conversion to these groups from the Church of Denmark remained illegal initially. Until the 1970s, the state formally recognised "religious societies" by royal decree. Today, religious groups do not need official government recognition, they can be granted the right to perform weddings and other ceremonies without this recognition. Denmark's Muslims make up approximately 3.7% of the population and form the country's second largest religious community and largest minority religion. The Danish Foreign Ministry estimates that other religious groups comprise less than 1% of the population individually and approximately 2% when taken all together.