29 Little Known Facts About Denmark

Denmark, the little country in the North of Europe, is famous for Carlsberg, Legoland and the Little Mermaid. But did you know these little known facts?

Geography And Weather
In Denmark, it rains every second day. On average, a year has 171 days with a precipitation of more than 0.1mm). In 2007, however, there were 188 days of precipitation. There is usually a brisk breeze blowing in Denmark; the average wind speed is 7.6 m/sec. In a year, the average temperature changes from 0 °C in January to 16 °C in August. The Kingdom of Denmark includes, besides Denmark, the self-governing areas of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The ice free part of Greenland is almost 10 times larger than Denmark. The Danish countryside is rather flat. The highest point is 180 metres above sea level. Denmark borders with only one country, Germany. If you buy a boat in Copenhagen and sail to the nearest shore on the other side of the water, you arrive in Sweden.

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The Danes
The 5.48 million Danes make up only about 0.8 per thousand of the earth's population of 6.7 billion people. In the early 1900s the Danes made up 1.5 per thousand so, in relative terms, the Danes have become fewer. Life expectancy for Danish women is 79 and for men 74. Danish women are on average almost 29 years old when they give birth to their first child. This is an increase of more than five years since 1970 when women were almost 24 years old when giving birth for the first time. Danish children and youngsters spend many years in school. A child who starts nursery school today will on average spend 16-17 years studying before attaining the final exam certificate. Lars Ulrich of Metallica was born in Denmark. The Great Danes dog breed probably did not originate from Denmark, but from Germany.

Danish Culture
Only three Danish films have sold more than one million tickets. The Danish alphabet has three letters not found in the English alphabet: Æ, Ø, and Å. All three are vowels, and they come after the letter Z in the Danish alphabet. The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art was the Danes' favourite museum in 2007 with 468,000 visitors. The Danes love quality food. This makes this small nation the fifth largest exporter of food in the world. An average Dane travels 13,600 km a year. 43% of all Danes own a car. The Danes sent 42 million MMS messages in 2007. Dublin in Ireland was an important Viking trading center. Place names in the UK ending in -by (Whitby) and -thorpe (Scunthorpe) were Viking settlements. The Danish monarchy has existed for over a thousand years.

Economy
In the last ten years the average wages have increased by 44 per cent. During the same period, prices have increased by only 25 per cent resulting in a considerably higher purchasing power. Danish families had an average disposable income of DKK 280,000 (,000) in 2006. Small and medium-sized companies (77% of the Danish companies employ less than 50 people) dominate the Danish business community. Denmark has 298,000 active enterprises, which corresponds to almost one company per every tenDanes on the labour market. Danish farms are the home of more than 13 million pigs. The majority of the pigs are kept in Jutland, while the remaining number is distributed between Funen, Zealand and other islands. The average tax rate in Denmark is 49%.

29 Little Known Facts About Denmark

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