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Total population | |
---|---|
c. 8 million | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Denmark | 5,961,249 [1] |
United States | 1,430,897 [2] |
Canada | 207,470 [3] [4] |
Norway | 52,510 [5] |
Brazil | 52,000 [6] [7] [8] |
Australia | 50,413 [9] |
Germany | 50,000 [10] |
Argentina | 48,000 [11] [12] |
Sweden | 42,602 [13] |
United Kingdom | 18,493 (Danish born only) [14] |
Spain | 10,000 [15] |
France | 7,000 [16] |
Switzerland | 4,251 [17] |
Iceland | 4,214 [18] |
New Zealand | 3,507 [19] |
Italy | 2,084 [20] |
Portugal | 1,528 [21] |
Austria | 1,281 [22] |
Japan | 941 [23] |
Ireland | 809 [24] |
Lebanon | 400 [25] |
Languages | |
Danish | |
Religion | |
Lutheranism (Church of Denmark) [26] Further details: Religion in Denmark |
Danes (Danish : danskere, pronounced [ˈtænskɐɐ] ), or Danish people, are an ethnic group and nationality native to Denmark and a modern nation identified with the country of Denmark. [27] This connection may be ancestral, legal, historical, or cultural.
Danes generally regard themselves as a nationality and reserve the word "ethnic" for the description of recent immigrants, [28] sometimes referred to as "new Danes". [29] The contemporary Danish national identity is based on the idea of "Danishness", which is founded on principles formed through historical cultural connections and is typically not based on ethnic heritage. [30]
Denmark has been inhabited by various Germanic peoples since ancient times, including the Angles, Cimbri, Jutes, Herules, Teutones and others. [31]
The first mention of Danes within Denmark is on the Jelling Rune Stone, which mentions the conversion of the Danes to Christianity by Harald Bluetooth in the 10th century. [32] Between c. 960 and the early 980s, Bluetooth established a kingdom in the lands of the Danes, stretching from Jutland to Scania. Around the same time, he received a visit from a German missionary who, by surviving an ordeal by fire according to legend, convinced Harold to convert to Christianity. [33]
The following years saw the Danish Viking expansion, which incorporated Norway and England into the Danish North Sea Empire. After the death of Canute the Great in 1035, England broke away from Danish control. Canute's nephew Sweyn Estridson (1020–74) re-established strong royal Danish authority and built a good relationship with the archbishop of Bremen, at that time the archbishop of all Scandinavia. Over the next centuries, the Danish empire expanded throughout the southern Baltic coast. [31] Under the 14th century king Olaf II, Denmark acquired control of the Kingdom of Norway, which included the territories of Norway, Iceland and the Faroese Islands. Olaf's mother, Margrethe I, united Norway, Sweden and Denmark into the Kalmar Union. [31]
In 1523, Sweden won its independence, leading to the dismantling of the Kalmar Union and the establishment of Denmark–Norway. Denmark–Norway grew wealthy during the 16th century, largely because of the increased traffic through the Øresund. The Crown of Denmark could tax the traffic, because it controlled both sides of the Sound at the time.
The Reformation, which originated in the German lands in the early 16th century from the ideas of Martin Luther (1483–1546), had a considerable impact on Denmark. The Danish Reformation started in the mid-1520s. Some Danes wanted access to the Bible in their own language. In 1524, Hans Mikkelsen and Christiern Pedersen translated the New Testament into Danish; it became an instant best-seller. Those who had traveled to Wittenberg in Saxony and come under the influence of the teachings of Luther and his associates included Hans Tausen, a Danish monk in the Order of St John Hospitallers.
In the 17th century Denmark–Norway colonized Greenland. [31]
After a failed war with the Swedish Empire, the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658 removed the areas of the Scandinavian peninsula from Danish control, thus establishing the boundaries between Norway, Denmark, and Sweden that exist to this day. In the centuries after this loss of territory, the populations of the Scanian lands, who had previously been considered Danish, came to be fully integrated as Swedes.
In the early 19th century, Denmark suffered a defeat in the Napoleonic Wars; Denmark lost control over Norway and territories in what is now northern Germany. The political and economic defeat ironically sparked what is known as the Danish Golden Age during which a Danish national identity first came to be fully formed. The Danish liberal and national movements gained momentum in the 1830s, and after the European revolutions of 1848 Denmark became a constitutional monarchy on 5 June 1849. The growing bourgeoisie had demanded a share in government, and in an attempt to avert the sort of bloody revolution occurring elsewhere in Europe, Frederick VII gave in to the demands of the citizens. A new constitution emerged, separating the powers and granting the franchise to all adult males, as well as freedom of the press, religion, and association. The king became head of the executive branch.
Danishness (danskhed) is the concept on which contemporary Danish national and ethnic identity is based. It is a set of values formed through the historic trajectory of the formation of the Danish nation. The ideology of Danishness emphasizes the notion of historical connection between the population and the territory of Denmark and the relation between the thousand-year-old Danish monarchy and the modern Danish state, the 19th-century national romantic idea of "the people" (folk), a view of Danish society as homogeneous and socially egalitarian as well as strong cultural ties to other Scandinavian nations. [34]
As a concept, det danske folk (the Danish people) played an important role in 19th-century ethnic nationalism and refers to self-identification rather than a legal status. Use of the term is most often restricted to a historical context; the historic German-Danish struggle regarding the status of the Duchy of Schleswig vis-à-vis a Danish nation-state. It describes people of Danish nationality, both in Denmark and elsewhere–most importantly, ethnic Danes in both Denmark proper and the former Danish Duchy of Schleswig. Excluded from this definition are people from the formerly Norway, Faroe Islands, and Greenland; members of the German minority; and members of other ethnic minorities.[ citation needed ]
Importantly, since its formulation, Danish identity has not been linked to a particular racial or biological heritage, as many other ethno-national identities have. N. F. S. Grundtvig, for example, emphasized the Danish language and the emotional relation to and identification with the nation of Denmark as the defining criteria of Danishness. This cultural definition of ethnicity has been suggested to be one of the reasons that Denmark was able to integrate their earliest ethnic minorities of Jewish and Polish origins into the Danish ethnic group with much more success than neighboring Germany. Jewishness was not seen as being incompatible with a Danish ethnic identity, as long as the most important cultural practices and values were shared. This inclusive ethnicity has in turn been described as the background for the relative lack of virulent antisemitism in Denmark and the rescue of the Danish Jews, saving 99% of Denmark's Jewish population from the Holocaust. [35]
Modern Danish cultural identity is rooted in the birth of the Danish national state during the 19th century. In this regard, Danish national identity was built on a basis of peasant culture and Lutheran theology, with Grundtvig and his popular movement playing a prominent part in the process. Two defining cultural criteria of being Danish were speaking the Danish language and identifying Denmark as a homeland. [36]
The ideology of Danishness has been politically important in the formulation of Danish political relations with the EU, which has been met with considerable resistance in the Danish population, and in recent reactions in the Danish public to the increasing influence of immigration. [37] [38]
The Danish diaspora consists of emigrants and their descendants, especially those who maintain some of the customs of their Danish culture. A minority of approximately fifty thousand Danish-identifying German citizens live in the former Danish territory of Southern Schleswig (Sydslesvig), now located within the borders of Germany, forming around ten percent of the local population.[ citation needed ] In Denmark, the latter group is often referred to as "Danes south of the border" (De danske syd for grænsen), the "Danish-minded" (de dansksindede), or simply "South Schleswigers". Due to immigration there are considerable populations with Danish roots outside Denmark in countries such as the United States, Brazil, Canada, Greenland and Argentina.[ citation needed ]
Danish Americans (Dansk-amerikanere) are Americans of Danish descent. There are approximately 1,500,000 Americans of Danish origin or descent. Most Danish-Americans live in the Western United States or the Midwestern United States. California has the largest population of people of Danish descent in the United States. Notable Danish communities in the United States are located in Solvang, California, and Racine, Wisconsin, but these populations are not considered to be Danes for official purposes by the Danish government, and heritage alone can not be used to claim Danish citizenship, as it can in some European nations.
According to the 2006 Census, there were 200,035 Canadians with Danish background, 17,650 of whom were born in Denmark. [3] [39] Canada became an important destination for the Danes during the post war period. At one point,[ when? ] a Canadian immigration office was to be set up in Copenhagen. [40]
In Greenland, a self-governing territory under Danish sovereignty, there are approximately 6,348 Danish Greenlanders making up roughly 11% of the territory's population. [41]
The most common Y-DNA haplogroups among Danes are R1b (37.3 %) and I1 (32.8 %). [42]
Demographic features of the population of Denmark proper, part of the Danish Realm, include ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects.
Nuuk is the capital of and most populous city in Greenland, an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark. Nuuk is the seat of government and the territory's largest cultural and economic center. Nuuk is also the seat of government for the Sermersooq municipality. In January 2024, it had a population of 19,872, – more than a third of the territory's population – making it one of the smallest capital cities in the world by population. Nuuk is considered a modernized city.
Denmark is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark, also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the north Atlantic Ocean. Metropolitan Denmark, also called "continental Denmark" or "Denmark proper", consists of the northern Jutland peninsula and an archipelago of 406 islands. It is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, lying southwest and south of Sweden, south of Norway, and north of Germany, with which it shares a short border. Denmark proper is situated between the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the east.
The German diaspora consists of German people and their descendants who live outside of Germany. The term is used in particular to refer to the aspects of migration of German speakers from Central Europe to different countries around the world. This definition describes the "German" term as a sociolinguistic group as opposed to the national one since the emigrant groups came from different regions with diverse cultural practices and different varieties of German. For instance, the Alsatians and Hessians were often simply called "Germans" once they set foot in their new homelands.
The Danish ethnic minority in Southern Schleswig, Germany, has existed by this name since 1920, when the Schleswig Plebiscite split German-ruled Schleswig into two parts: Northern Schleswig with a Danish majority and a German minority was united with Denmark, while Southern Schleswig remained a part of Germany and had a German majority and Danish and Frisian minority populations. Their historic roots go back to the beginning of Danish settlement after the emigration of the Angles. One of the most common names they use to describe themselves is danske sydslesvigere.
Danish overseas colonies and Dano-Norwegian colonies were the colonies that Denmark–Norway possessed from 1537 until 1953. At its apex, the colonies spanned four continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.
Christianity is the largest religion in Denmark. As of 2024, 71.2% of the population of Denmark were registered members of the Church of Denmark, the officially established church, which is Protestant in classification and Lutheran in orientation.
Nordic and Scandinavian Americans are Americans of Scandinavian and/or Nordic ancestry, including Danish Americans, Faroese Americans, Finnish Americans, Greenlandic Americans, Icelandic Americans, Norwegian Americans, and Swedish Americans. Also included are persons who reported 'Scandinavian' ancestry on their census. According to 2021 census estimates, there are approximately 9,365,489 people of Scandinavian ancestry in the United States.
The history of Jews in Denmark goes back to the 1600s. Although there were very likely Jewish merchants, sailors, and among others, who entered Denmark during the Middle Ages, back in around the year 1000, when Denmark became the first Christian Kingdom until 1536, though no efforts were made to establish a Jewish community. At present, Jewish community of Denmark constitutes a small minority of about 6,000 persons within Danish society.
Icelandic Americans are Americans of Icelandic descent or Iceland-born people who reside in the United States. Icelandic immigrants came to the United States primarily in the period 1873–1905 and after World War II. There are more than 40,000 Icelandic Americans according to the 2000 U.S. census, and most live in the Upper Midwest. The United States is home to the second largest Icelandic diaspora community in the world after Canada.
The Kingdom of Denmark has only one official language, Danish, the national language of the Danish people, but there are several minority languages spoken, namely Faroese, German, and Greenlandic.
The Somali diaspora or Qurbajoogta refers to Somalis who were born in Greater Somalia and reside in areas of the world that they were not born in. The civil war in Somalia greatly increased the size of the Somali diaspora, as many Somalis moved from Greater Somalia primarily to Europe, North America, Oceania and South Africa. There are also small Somali populations in Asia. The UN estimates that in 2015, approximately 7 million people from Somalia were living outside of the country's borders.
The Danish Realm, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, or simply Denmark, is a sovereign state consisting of a collection of constituent territories united by the Constitutional Act, which applies to the entire territory. It consists of metropolitan Denmark—the kingdom's territory in continental Europe and sometimes called "Denmark proper" —and the realm's two autonomous regions: the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic and Greenland in North America. The relationship between the three parts of the Kingdom is known as Rigsfællesskabet.
Danish Australians are Australians with full or partial Danish ancestry. The majority of these people are part of the Danish diaspora.
European Canadians are Canadians who can trace their ancestry to the continent of Europe. They form the largest panethnic group within Canada.
The Nordic countries are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden; the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland; and the autonomous region of Åland.
Christianity is a prevalent religion in Denmark; in January 2023, 72.1% of the population of Denmark were members of the Church of Denmark. According to a survey based on a sample 1,114, 25% of Danes believe Jesus is the son of God, and 18% believe he is the saviour of the world. Aside from Lutheranism, there is a small Catholic minority, as well as small Protestant denominations such as the Baptist Union of Denmark and the Reformed Synod of Denmark.
Danish Greenlanders are ethnic Danes residing in Greenland and their descendants.
Greenlandic people in Denmark are residents of Denmark with Greenlandic or Greenlandic Inuit heritage. According to StatBank Greenland, as of 2020, there were 16,780 people born in Greenland living in Denmark, a figure representing almost one third of the population of Greenland. According to a 2007 Danish government report, there were 18,563 Greenlandic people living in Denmark. The exact number is difficult to calculate because of the lack of differentiation between Greenlandic and Danish heritage in Danish government records and also due to the fact that the way in which people identify themselves is not always a reflection of their birthplace. As of 2018, there were 2,507 Greenlanders enrolled in education in Denmark.
Danish Argentines are Argentine citizens of Danish ancestry or people who have emigrated from Denmark and reside in Argentina. Danish immigration to Argentina was particularly intense between the late 19th century and early 20th century. It is estimated that between 1857 and 1930 about 18,000 Danes settled in Argentina. The wave of Danish immigration to Argentina was the third largest in the world, behind those in the United States and Australia, making it one of the largest Danish communities in the world. They also include Faroese and Greenlandic Argentines because of Faroe Islands' and Greenland's status as an autonomous territory of Denmark.
Media related to Danes at Wikimedia Commons