Copenhagen

|Copenhagen, Denmark

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City coat of arms
Location in Denmark
Area  - City  - Metropolitan	88 km² 455.61 km²
Population (2006-01-01)  - City  - Metropolitan  - Density (city/met)	501,158 1,211,542 5695/km² / 2659/km²
Time zone	Central European: UTC+1
Latitude Longitude	55°43' N 12°34' E

Copenhagen (IPA: , rhyming with pagan (the way the Danes themselves pronounce the capital's name when saying it in English), or , with a as in spa; Danish IPA: ) is the capital of Denmark and the country's largest city (metropolitan population 1,211,542 (2006)), at present made up of 16 municipalities. It is also the name of the adjacent county. Copenhagen is the seat of the national parliament, the government, and the monarchy.

The contemporary Danish name for the city is a corruption of the original designation for the city, Kjøbmandehavn, "merchants' harbor." The English name for the city is derived from its German name, Kopenhagen. The element Hafnium is named after the city's Latin name, Hafnia.

Copenhagen municipality

Copenhagen is one of three Danish municipalities that are not part of any county (that is, county functions are performed by the municipality), the others being the city of Frederiksberg (an enclave within Copenhagen itself) and the island of Bornholm. On 1 January 2007, when the counties are to be replaced by fewer but larger "regions", Copenhagen will lose this special status and become an ordinary municipality within the new Region Hovedstaden (i.e. the Copenhagen Capital Region).

The municipality covers a land area of 88 (total a. 91.3) km², and has a population of 501,000 (2006). Lord Mayor of Copenhagen is Ritt Bjerregaard, a member of the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterne) political party, who is head of the Finance Committee. Other mayors are Martin Geertsen (Cultural and Recreational Committee), Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard (Education and Youth Committee), Mogens Lønborg (Health and Care Committee), Jakob Hougaard (Employment and Integration Committee), Klaus Bondam (Building and Environment Committee), and Mikkel Warming (Social Committee).

The municipal seat of government is the Copenhagen City Hall (Rådhus).

Neighboring municipalities are Gentofte, Gladsaxe and Herlev to the north, Rødovre and Hvidovre to the west, and Tårnby to the south. Frederiksberg is located as an enclave within the municipality, and is thus surrounded by Copenhagen.

Copenhagen municipality will not be merged with other municipalities by January 1, 2007 as the result of nationwide Kommunalreformen ("The Municipal Reform" of 2007).

History of Copenhagen

Main article: History of Copenhagen

Copenhagen was founded around year 1000 by Sweyn I Forkbeard (Svend Tveskæg) and his son Canute the Great (Knud den Store). It was only a fishing village by the name of "Havn" (harbour) until the middle of the 12th century when it grew in importance after coming into the possession of the Bishop Absalon, who fortified it in 1167. The excellent harbour encouraged Copenhagen's growth until it became an important centre of commerce (hence its name). It was repeatedly attacked by the Hanseatic League as the Germans took notice. In 1254, it received its charter as a city under Bishop Jakob Erlandsen.

Copenhagen circa 1895.

During 1658-59 it withstood a severe siege by the Swedes under Charles X. In 1801 a British fleet under Admiral Parker fought a major battle, the Battle of Copenhagen, with the Danish navy in Copenhagen harbour. It was during this battle Lord Nelson famously "put the telescope to the blind eye" in order not to see Admiral Parker's signal to cease fire. When a British expeditionary force bombarded Copenhagen in 1807, to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon, the city suffered great damage and hundreds of people were killed.The reason why the devastation was so great was that Copenhagen relied on an old defence-line rendered virtually useless by the increase in shooting range available to the British. But not until the 1850's were the ramparts of the city opened to allow new housing to be built around the lakes ("Søerne") which bordered the old defence system to the west. This dramatic increase of space was long overdue, not only because the old ramparts were out of date as a defence system, but also because of bad sanitation in the old city. Before the opening, Copenhagen Center was inhabited by approximately 125,000 people, peaking in the census of 1870 (140,000); today the figure is around 25,000.In 1901, Copenhagen expanded further, incorporating communities with 40,000 people.

During World War II Copenhagen was occupied by German troops along with the rest of the country from 9th of April 1940 until 4th of May 1945. In August 1943, when the government's collaboration with the occupation forces collapsed, several ships were sunk in Copenhagen Harbour by the Royal Danish Navy to prevent them being used by the Germans. The city has grown greatly since the war, in the seventies using the so-called five-finger-plan of commuter trainlines to surrounding towns and suburbs.

Kongens Nytorv in the Wintertime

Since the summer 2000, the cities of Copenhagen and Malmö have been connected by a toll bridge/tunnel (Øresund Bridge), which allows both rail and road passengers to cross. It was inaugurated in July 2000 by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. As a result, Copenhagen has become the centre of a larger metropolitan area which spans both nations. The construction of the bridge has led to a large number of changes to the public transportation system and the extensive redevelopment of Amager, south of the main city. The bridge has not yet been as widely used by motorists as was originally hoped, likely due to the high road tolls, allegedly slowing the planned integration of the region. Train passengers, however, are plentiful and increasing in numbers. The lack of a commonly acceptable currency throughout the area is another hindrance to the integration of the region, even though a growing number of shops, restaurants etc, if not usually encouraged, accept payment with either nation's currency in the other country.

Nyhavn.

Geography

Copenhagen is located on the eastern shore of the island of Zealand (Sjælland) and partly on the island of Amager. Copenhagen faces to the east the Øresund, the strait of water that separates Denmark from Sweden, and that connects the North Sea with the Baltic Sea. On the Swedish side of the sound directly across from Copenhagen, lie the towns of Malmö and Landskrona.

1,115,035 people live in metropolitan Copenhagen (Storkøbenhavn) , which is a statistical abstract only. Of these, 501,158 live in the Municipality of Copenhagen, 91,855 in the Municipality of Frederiksberg, 68,623 in the Municipality of Gentofte and another 453,399 in 13 other nearby municipalities.

An even larger metropolitan region is known as the Copenhagen Region (Hovedstadsregionen), which consists of the municipalities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg, and the counties of Copenhagen, Frederiksborg and Roskilde. The population of Hovedstadsregionen is 1,831,751 (2006). Land area: 2760 km² (1,065.6 sq mi). Water area: 105 km² (40.5 sq mi). Thus, the Copenhagen Region comprises 6,5% of the land area of Denmark, but has 34% of Denmark´s population. This gives a total of 664 inhabitants per km² or 1,720 per square mile for the Region. This compares with a population density in the rest of the country of approximately 90 per km² or around 230 per square mile. The population density of the Region is around 300 inhabitants per km² (777/ sq mi) outside the metropolitan area of Copenhagen, and this is also the population density of Zealand as a whole.

Copenhagen is also a part of the Øresund region, which consists of the eastern part of Zealand in Denmark and the western part of Skåne in Sweden.

The city itself is divided into 15 administrative, statistical and tax districts (bydele):{| valign="top" width="25%" |
* Indre By ("Copenhagen Center")
* Christianshavn
* Indre Østerbro ("Inner Østerbro")
* Ydre Østerbro ("Outer Østerbro")
* Indre Nørrebro ("Inner Nørrebro")