Travel Guide > Europe > Denmark
A modern, progressive nation, Denmark has long abandoned the less sophisticated ways of its Viking heritage. What highlights Denmark as an attractive place to visit is the lack of obstinate over-development and polluted modernity: its capital and largest city, Copenhagen is a thriving cosmopolitan city, but one which reveals the Danes' remarkable sensitivity to environmental aesthetics. Water fountains, parks and gardens abound; historical architecture remains superbly intact; and running through the city center is the world's longest pedestrian mall.
Denmark also boasts Scandinavia's oldest town, at Ribe. Ribe is a good place to visit if you want an insight into Danish history: not only because of its various museums heralding Viking artifacts, but also because of its relative lack of development over the last few centuries, leaving it much like it was three centuries ago.
Denmark is a small flat peninsula. There are also several islands that are connected by bridges or boats. Denmark shares international borders with Germany and Sweden via a bridge.
Denmark is divided into 5 administrative regions.
The airport in Copenhagen[1] (CPH/EKCH), originally and commonly known as Kastrup Airport, is the major hub for Scandinavia. It is a large airport, and has connections to destinations around the world. If you go to the countries north of Denmark, there's a good chance that you will make a stop at this airport. There are also commercial flights from smaller airports in Aalborg, Aarhus, Billund and Esbjerg.
The Oresund Bridge connects Copenhagen by train to Malmö in Sweden. Hamburg in Germany is the hub for mainland Europe to access Denmark via either the Great Belt rail link, the Little Belt Bridge or a train ferry that operates between Rødby in Denmark and Puttgarden in Germany.
International ferry services operate from Norway, Germany, Sweden, the Faroe Islands and the UK.
If you are a European Union (EU) citizen, you may travel in Denmark without any restriction as per your EU citizenship rights. If you are not an EU citizen and Denmark is the first stop on your visit, you will need to obtain a Schengen Visa. This visa is valid for any country in the Schengen zone.
The official currency of Denmark is the Danish krone (DKK). One krone (plural kroner) is divided into 100 øre.
Banknotes are in denominations of 50 kroner, 100 kroner, 200 kroner, 500 kroner, 1000 kroner.
Coins come in 25 øre, 50 øre, 1 krone, 2 kroner, 5 kroner, 10 kroner, 20 kroner.
As of 28 February 2008, the exchange rates against other major currencies are EUR1 = DKK7.50, GBP1 = DKK9.80, USD1 = DKK4.95.
There was a referendum on joining the Euro zone in 2000. The majority voted against.
Danish is an east Scandinavian language (its closest relative is Swedish), a Germanic language developed from Old Norse. Danish is divided into multiple dialects, but the standard version, which is used in media and official relations is used by almost everybody. Danish is commonly understandable for Swedes, Norwegians and to some extent people from Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland.
According to European Union statistics, English is more widely spoken in Denmark than in any other EU state other than the UK and Republic of Ireland.
Beer: Carlsberg and Tuborg is sold everywhere, but there's a lot of smaller breweries that are worth trying
Spirits: snaps/akvavit (vodka-like spirit), gammel dansk (bitter) and Små grå (liquorice-vodka)
This is version 21. Last edited at 20:42 on Mar 14, 08 by Lavafalls (+189). 25 articles link to this page.
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