Denmark Location

Denmark includes the Jutland peninsula (with the islands of Rømø and Fanø in the west in the North Sea, the islands of Mors in the Limfjord, Læsø and Anholt in the Kattegat, Alsen in the Little Belt), the large islands of Funen, Zealand, Ærø, Langeland, Lolland, Falster and Møn between the Kattegat and the Baltic Sea with its side islands and the Baltic Sea island Bornholm between southern Sweden and Rügen. Neighboring states are in the south of Germany (land border in Jutland, Fehmarnbelt) in the east and north of Sweden and Norway (sea borders in Bornholmgat, Öresund, Kattegat and Skagerrak).

The largest islands in Denmark

Of the approximately 490 islands, only 108 are inhabited. The coastline is 7 314 km. – Denmark is a flat and hilly country; the highest point, Yding Skovhøj in central East Jutland (terminal moraine), is 173 m above sea level. With the exception of Bornholm, which is mainly composed of gneiss and granite, the surface forms consist of ice and post-ice age deposits and thus form a continuation of the North German lowlands. On the Jutland North Sea coast in the south there is a mudflat and marshland area reaching as far as Esbjerg, which is joined to the north by a compensatory coast with beach lakes and the wide, flat Jammer Bay on the Skagerrak connects; Esbjerg, founded in the 19th century, is the only major port on this harbor-hostile, dune-occupied coast. Inland there are large, sandy or loamy moraine plates (old moraines) from the Saale Ice Age; they are partly covered by the formerly heather-covered sand areas of the Vistula Ice Age that were only used for agriculture and forestry since the second half of the 19th centuryoverlaid, to which the fertile, loamy hill country of East Jutland (predominantly hilly ground moraines) with channel lakes, tunnel and meltwater valleys and a richly indented fjord coast adjoin further to the east. At the inner end of the fjord, mostly as ports, are many of the country’s oldest cities. The islands between the Little Belt and Øresund consist of loamy-clayey ground moraine plates that have been shaped by recent ice stagnations (e.g. Fünensche Alps) and Osern (wall-like, elongated hills).

The subsoil in Denmark consists of tertiary layers with individual lignite deposits (Central Jutland) and near-surface chalk deposits (North Jutland, Baltic Sea to Lolland), which form cliffs on Zealand (Stevns Klint) and Møn (Møns Klint).

The basement only appears on Bornholm (granite quarries). Denmark is relatively poor in natural resources; The following are used: clay, salt, diatomaceous earth, chalk (fertilizer lime, cement production on Zealand and in the Aalborg area) and, for some years now, oil and gas from the offshore sector.

The rivers are insignificant. Worth mentioning in Jutland are Gudenå, Storå, Skernå, on the islands of Odense-Å (Funen) and Suså (Zealand). The North Jutland cut through, geologically very young Limfjord has partly river, partly lake character; also the Great and Little Belt (Beltsee) and the Øresund as outlets of the Baltic Sea did not emerge until around 5000 BC. Chr.

Vegetation

The country belongs to the European deciduous forest region, in which spruce and pine would not naturally occur. Around 62% of the area of ​​Denmark is used for agriculture, forest covers 14% of the country (in addition to beech forest, especially in Jutland, afforestation with imported conifers), dunes, heather areas and lakes make up 5%. The remains of the largest raised bogs (Store and Lille Vildmose in Jutland) are under nature protection.

Transportation

Denmark has a well-developed, modern transport system. The peninsular location and the large number of islands made it necessary to build many bridges (e.g. two bridges over the Little Belt), dams and ferry systems. Part of the freight traffic is still carried out today by water (coastal shipping). Important ferry connections exist among others. between Rostock and Gedser, across the Sound mainly between Helsingør and Helsingborg, between North Jutian ports (Hirtshals, Hanstholm, Frederikshavn) to southern Norway, from Frederikshavn and Grenå to Sweden and from Esbjerg to Great Britain. The Vogelfluglinie is an important international traffic artery between Central Europe and Scandinavia. The construction of a fixed link of the Fehmarnbelts between Denmark and Germany was not decided until 2007 (construction is expected to start in 2021). The complete completion and opening of the fixed connection over the Great Belt between Zealand and Funen, a bridge tunnel for road and rail traffic, however, took place in 1998. After decades of discussion about building a bridge to Sweden over the Øresund, a corresponding agreement between signed by the governments of both countries in 1991. The 16 km tunnel-bridge connection between Amager / Copenhagen and Malmö was opened for road and rail traffic in 2000. Visit behealthybytomorrow.com for getting to Denmark.

The road network is well developed. The railways are largely state-owned. Unprofitable routes were shut down and bus traffic (operated by the state railways) increased. In terms of population, the size of the merchant fleet is considerable (2017: 654 ships with a total of around 15 million GT). Of the more than 80 ports, only a few – Copenhagen, Esbjerg, Aarhus and Aalborg – exercise supraregional and international trading functions. The scheduled air traffic connections are operated by Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), which is operated jointly by the Nordic countries. Kastrup International Airport in Copenhagen is the most important in Northern Europe, ahead of Stockholm. Because of the small size of the country there are only a few regional airports (Billund, Aalborg).