30 Facts About Denmark, Each One Checked Against Its Source

Denmark is a constitutional monarchy of 6,032,304 people, ruled by King Frederik X since January 2024, and it uses the krone rather than the euro. The 30 facts below are grouped into six sets of five, and every one names where it comes from, because Denmark facts are copied between pages faster than they are checked.

Figures were read from the source on 11 September 2026. Where a number moves every year, the year it belongs to is in the sentence.

The land and the links: facts 1 to 5

Denmark is flat, wet-edged and stitched together by bridges, and the numbers are smaller than most people guess. The five facts below cover how many people live there, how high the country gets and how it reaches Sweden.

1. Denmark’s population is 6,032,304, recorded by Statistics Denmark for August 2026. The country crossed six million for the first time in 2025, and the same release counts 1,210 residents aged 100 or more.
2. The highest natural point in Denmark is Møllehøj, at 170.86 m (560.6 ft). It took the title from neighbouring Ejer Bavnehøj, which measures 170.35 m, after a resurvey settled a long argument by 51 cm. The stone tower that marks Denmark’s high point still stands on Ejer Bavnehøj, on the wrong hill.
3. Denmark has 7,314 km (4,545 mi) of coastline, the figure the Nordic Council publishes in its own country facts. That is within 200 km of Brazil’s total, on a country smaller than West Virginia.
4. VisitDenmark counts 444 islands, of which fewer than 80 are inhabited. Once every unnamed islet is counted the total runs past 1,400, which is why island counts for Denmark differ so wildly between sources.
5. The Øresund link to Sweden opened on 1 July 2000 and is 15.9 km (9.9 mi) long in total. It is not one structure but three: a 7,845 m cable-stayed bridge, the artificial island of Peberholm, and the 4,050 m Drogden tunnel that runs the last stretch into Amager so aircraft can still land at Copenhagen Airport.

The krone, not the euro: facts 6 to 10

Denmark is in the European Union and is not in the eurozone, and that is a deliberate choice made twice at the ballot box. The five facts below explain what Danes actually pay with and how tightly the krone is tied to the euro anyway.

6. Danes voted against the euro on 28 September 2000, by 53.2% to 46.8% on an 87.6% turnout. The Danish Parliament lists the euro opt-out among the exemptions Denmark negotiated after the 1992 Maastricht referendum, and it has never been put to a vote again.
7. The krone is pegged to the euro at a central rate of 7.46038 kroner per euro. Danmarks Nationalbank keeps it inside an ERM II band of plus or minus 2.25%, which means the rate cannot legally move outside 729.252 and 762.824 kroner per 100 euro. In practice it barely moves at all, which is why Danish prices convert so cleanly.
8. Denmark scrapped its EU defence opt-out by referendum on 1 June 2022, by 66.9% to 33.1%. That removed one of the four Maastricht exemptions. The euro opt-out was not on the ballot and still stands.
9. Denmark’s registration tax on a new car runs in three bands and tops out at 150%. The Danish Motor Vehicle Agency publishes the 2026 brackets, and 25% VAT sits on top of the whole thing. The often-repeated claim that Denmark charges a flat 150% on every new car is wrong: 150% is the top band, not the rate.
10. Riding public transport without a valid ticket costs at least 750 kr (about €100, $116, £86). That is the minimum penalty published by DOT, the joint ticketing body for Copenhagen and Zealand, and inspectors check on the metro, which has no barriers and no driver.

The crown, the flag and the law: facts 11 to 15

Denmark’s monarchy is the oldest in Europe still on its original line, and Danish law is both unusually early on some things and unusually prescriptive on others. The five facts below cover the throne, the flag and two laws worth knowing about.

11. King Frederik X has reigned since 14 January 2024. Queen Margrethe II abdicated that day after 52 years, the first voluntary abdication by a Danish monarch since 1146, and she chose the same date in January on which she had acceded in 1972.
12. The Dannebrog holds the Guinness World Record as the oldest continuously used national flag, dated from 1625. Danish legend puts its origin at the Battle of Lyndanisse in Estonia on 15 June 1219, when a red banner with a white cross is said to have fallen from the sky. Denmark still marks 15 June as Valdemarsdag, its flag day.
13. Danish fishermen and the resistance ferried about 7,200 Danish Jews to neutral Sweden over three weeks in October 1943, together with roughly 700 non-Jewish family members. Yad Vashem records the operation, and it is the reason almost the entire Danish Jewish community survived the war.
14. Denmark was the first country in the world to give legal recognition to same-sex couples, in 1989. The registered-partnership law did not include joint adoption, which arrived separately in 2010, so guides that credit the 1989 law with adoption rights are conflating two different acts 21 years apart.
15. Danish parents choose a first name from an approved list that now runs to roughly 23,000 male, 28,000 female and 1,500 unisex names. The Danish Agency of Family Law maintains it, and anything outside it needs an application. The figure of 7,000 names that circulates on fact pages is long out of date.

The rest of the Kingdom: facts 16 to 20

The Kingdom of Denmark is much larger than Denmark, and its World Heritage list has grown twice in the past two years. The five facts below cover Greenland, the Faroes, a resolved Arctic border and what UNESCO has inscribed.

16. Greenland is the largest island on earth and part of the Kingdom of Denmark, with a population of roughly 57,000 and its own home-rule government. Australia is larger but counts as a continent, which is what leaves Greenland at the top of the island list.
17. The Faroe Islands are 18 volcanic islands with a population of 56,365, recorded in February 2026. All but one are inhabited, nearly half the population lives in and around Tórshavn, and no point in the archipelago is more than 5 km (3.1 mi) from the sea.
18. The Hans Island dispute ended on 14 June 2022, when Denmark and Canada agreed to divide the island. The two countries had spent decades swapping flags and bottles of spirits on the 1.3 km² rock in the Nares Strait. The agreement gave Canada its only land border with a country other than the United States, and pages still describing the “whisky war” as running are three years out of date.
19. The Kingdom of Denmark has 13 UNESCO World Heritage properties, 8 cultural and 5 natural. They include Roskilde Cathedral, inscribed in 1995 and described by UNESCO as Scandinavia’s first Gothic cathedral built of brick, along with Kronborg Castle, the Jelling Mounds and the Viking-Age Ring Fortresses added in 2023.
20. Two of those 13 were inscribed in the past two years. Møns Klint joined the list in 2025, and the Bony Fish Fossils of the Western Limfjord were inscribed in 2026, both as natural sites. Any Denmark list still saying “ten UNESCO sites” predates both.

Wind, climate and bicycles: facts 21 to 25

Denmark’s energy and transport numbers are the ones that go stale fastest, and the ones most often quoted at a decade out of date. The five facts below are the current versions, including the climate target Copenhagen gave up on.

21. Wind supplied about 60% of Denmark’s domestic electricity production in 2025, according to Energinet, the national grid operator. Older fact pages still quote 39% or 42%, figures from the middle of the 2010s.
22. Copenhagen abandoned its target of becoming carbon neutral by 2025, in August 2022. The city had cut emissions by around 80% against its baseline, well past its interim goal, but could not close the remaining gap without a carbon-capture plant it had not funded. The city now works to a 2035 climate strategy instead.
23. Copenhagen has roughly 400 km (248.5 mi) of cycle tracks and more than 25 bridges built for bicycles and pedestrians, on the city’s own count. The claim that Denmark has no designated bicycle lanes, which turns up on several fact lists, is the reverse of the truth.
24. Over 2.7 million kilometres (1.7 million miles) are cycled in Copenhagen every weekday, which the city itself puts at 67 times around the earth. Only 0.1 injuries are recorded per million kilometres cycled.
25. There are more bicycles in Copenhagen than there are Copenhageners. The city states it plainly in its own cycling material, and in the central districts bicycles now outnumber cars.

Pigs, stars, bricks and one street: facts 26 to 30

Denmark’s exports and its most-visited attractions each carry a number worth having right. The five facts below close the list, and the last one describes a place that stopped existing in its old form in 2024.

26. Denmark produced 30.8 million pigs in 2025, a rise of almost 1.2 million on the year before, on the Danish Agriculture and Food Council’s own figures. That is roughly five pigs for every resident.
27. Copenhagen holds 31 Michelin stars across 21 restaurants in the 2026 Michelin Guide Nordic Countries, and Denmark as a whole has 42 starred restaurants. Kadeau Copenhagen was promoted to three stars in 2026, becoming one of only six three-star restaurants in the Nordic countries.
28. The LEGO brick was patented on 28 January 1958 at 1:58 pm. The LEGO Group’s own history dates the filing to the minute, and the stud-and-tube coupling it described is why a brick moulded in 1958 still clips onto one moulded today. The company name comes from leg godt, Danish for “play well”.
29. Tivoli Gardens opened in 1843 and closes between its four seasons. In 2026 it runs 27 March to 20 September for summer, 2 October to 1 November for Halloween and 13 November to 3 January for Christmas, shut on 24 December, with the garden closed in the gaps. Turning up in the first week of November means a locked gate.
30. Christiania’s Pusher Street was dug up on 6 April 2024. Residents, politicians and police lifted the cobblestones together to end the open cannabis trade that had run there for decades, and the Danish justice minister said the street would be permanently closed during 2024. The Freetown is still there, and the street it was famous for is not.

Planning a trip to Denmark

Denmark is small enough to cross in a day and expensive enough to plan properly, so the order is usually route first, beds second, cover third. Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense sit on one rail spine, which is why most first trips use the train rather than a car.

Trains and coaches between Danish cities, and across the bridge to Malmö, are quickest to compare in one place, and Omio sells Danish rail and coach tickets alongside the cross-border ones. If your plan is the west coast, Skagen or the Wadden Sea instead, a car earns its keep, and DiscoverCars compares Danish depots including the airport ones on the same dates.

Accommodation is where a Danish budget is won or lost, because city-centre rooms in Copenhagen cost a multiple of the same room in Odense. Checking several cities on the same nights before you fix the itinerary is worth the ten minutes, and Trip.com lists Danish hotels and apartments across the whole country on one map.

Where to go once the route is set is covered on our page of places to visit in Denmark, and what to eat when you get there is on our guide to Danish food. The capital, the second city and Hans Christian Andersen’s home town each have their own guides: Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense.

Denmark facts FAQ

Does Denmark use the euro?

No. Denmark uses the Danish krone, written kr or DKK, and rejected the euro in a referendum on 28 September 2000 by 53.2% to 46.8%. It is a European Union member with a negotiated opt-out, and the krone is pegged to the euro at 7.46038 rather than replaced by it.

What is the highest point in Denmark?

Møllehøj, at 170.86 m (560.6 ft). It is 51 cm higher than neighbouring Ejer Bavnehøj, which held the title until a resurvey and which still carries the commemorative tower.

How many islands does Denmark have?

VisitDenmark counts 444 islands, and fewer than 80 of them are inhabited. Counts running past 1,400 include every unnamed islet, which is why published figures for Denmark vary so much.

Who is the king of Denmark?

Frederik X, since 14 January 2024. He succeeded his mother Margrethe II, who abdicated after 52 years on the throne in the first voluntary Danish abdication since 1146.

Is Greenland part of Denmark?

Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and governs itself under home rule. It is the largest island in the world, has a population of around 57,000, and holds three of the Kingdom’s UNESCO World Heritage properties.

Why does Denmark have so many pigs?

Denmark produced 30.8 million pigs in 2025, around five per resident, on the Danish Agriculture and Food Council’s figures. Pork is one of the country’s largest food exports, and most of the production leaves Denmark rather than being eaten there.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The four tips below each come from a fact on this list that changes what you would do on the ground in Denmark.

1. Check Tivoli’s calendar before you book Copenhagen in November. Tivoli closes between its seasons, and in 2026 the gap between the Halloween season ending on 1 November and the Christmas season opening on 13 November is eleven days with the garden shut.
2. Do not go to Christiania for Pusher Street. The cobblestones came up on 6 April 2024 and the open trade is gone. The Freetown, the workshops, the lake path and the self-built houses are all still worth an hour, so go for those instead.
3. Buy a ticket even for one stop on the Copenhagen metro. There are no barriers and no driver, which makes fare evasion look easy, and the published minimum fine is 750 kr (about €100, $116, £86).
4. Climb Ejer Bavnehøj anyway. Møllehøj is the true high point by 51 cm, but it is a field with a millstone in it. The tower, the view and the car park are all on Ejer Bavnehøj next door, and the two are a few minutes’ walk apart.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the team covers Denmark for independent travellers, including Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense, the city cards worth buying, the trains between them and the travel insurance to book first. Every figure on this page is checked against the body that publishes it, from Statistics Denmark and Danmarks Nationalbank to UNESCO and the venues themselves, and the page is updated when those figures change.