Regions of Denmark
Denmark, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, is a Scandinavian country in Europe and a sovereign state. The southernmost and smallest of the Nordic countries, it is south-west of Sweden and south of Norway, Denmark comprises two autonomous constituent countries in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Denmark has an area of 42,924 square kilometres. The country consists of a peninsula, and an archipelago of 443 named islands, with the largest being Zealand, the islands are characterised by flat, arable land and sandy coasts, low elevation and a temperate climate. The unified kingdom of Denmark emerged in the 10th century as a proficient seafaring nation in the struggle for control of the Baltic Sea, Denmark and Norway were ruled together under the Kalmar Union, established in 1397 and ending with Swedish secession in 1523. Denmark and Norway remained under the monarch until outside forces dissolved the union in 1814. The union with Norway made it possible for Denmark to inherit the Faroe Islands, beginning in the 17th century, there were several cessions of territory to Sweden.
In the 19th century there was a surge of nationalist movements, Denmark remained neutral during World War I. In April 1940, a German invasion saw brief military skirmishes while the Danish resistance movement was active from 1943 until the German surrender in May 1945, the Constitution of Denmark was signed on 5 June 1849, ending the absolute monarchy which had begun in 1660. It establishes a constitutional monarchy organised as a parliamentary democracy, the government and national parliament are seated in Copenhagen, the nations capital, largest city and main commercial centre. Denmark exercises hegemonic influence in the Danish Realm, devolving powers to handle internal affairs, Home rule was established in the Faroe Islands in 1948, in Greenland home rule was established in 1979 and further autonomy in 2009. Denmark became a member of the European Economic Community in 1973, maintaining certain opt-outs, it retains its own currency, the krone. It is among the members of NATO, the Nordic Council, the OECD, OSCE.
The etymology of the word Denmark, and especially the relationship between Danes and Denmark and the unifying of Denmark as a kingdom, is a subject which attracts debate. This is centred primarily on the prefix Dan and whether it refers to the Dani or a historical person Dan and the exact meaning of the -mark ending. Most handbooks derive the first part of the word, and the name of the people, from a word meaning land, related to German Tenne threshing floor. The -mark is believed to mean woodland or borderland, with references to the border forests in south Schleswig. The first recorded use of the word Danmark within Denmark itself is found on the two Jelling stones, which are believed to have been erected by Gorm the Old and Harald Bluetooth
Nysted
Nysted is a town in Guldborgsund municipality in Region Sjælland on the southeastern coast of the island of Lolland in south Denmark. The town of Nysted is located on the southern coast of Lolland, the town and harbour originated during the Middle Ages near Aalholm Castle and a Franciscan cloister. The town was a crossroads for commerce and traffic on account of its having the only natural harbour on the south coast of Lolland. During this time Lolland, and especially its southern coast, was vulnerable to attack by Wends, proximity to the castle was a great advantage to the people who lived there, but protection meant that they belonged to the castle. In 1409 they were liberated when Eric of Pomerania gave Nysted merchant town status and this was re-established by King Christian II in 1513. Like other merchant towns the citizens of Nysted joined in on Christian IIs side in the Counts Feud, the castle was overtaken by Count Christoffer, who held it for two years. The towns coastal advantage as a natural harbour disappeared with the advent of the railroad, the massive Aalholm Castle, built ca.
1200, dominates the view from the harbour at Nysted, for over 1,000 years this stronghold has tried to protected the towns citizens. It is one of the oldest, preserved Middle Ages fortresses in Denmark, the castle has been enlarged several times, most recently in 1889. The castle was sold to the Raben-Levetzau family in 1725, who owned the property until 1995 when it was sold privately and it is owned today by the estate of the late Stig Husted Andersen. There is no entrance to the castle itself, but access is available to the park, the Aalholm Automobile Museum is now closed, and all the cars are sold. Until January 1,2007 Nysted was a municipality in the former Storstrøm County, the municipality covered an area of 142 km², and had a total population of 5,417. Its last mayor was Lennart Andersen, a member of the Social Democrats political party, Nysted municipality ceased to exist as the result of Kommunalreformen. It was merged with Nykøbing Falster, Nørre Alslev, Sakskøbing, Stubbekøbing and this created a municipality with an area of 907 km² and a total population of 63,533
Trebuchet
A trebuchet is a type of siege engine most frequently used in the Middle Ages. It is sometimes called a trebuchet or counterpoise trebuchet, to distinguish it from an earlier weapon called the traction trebuchet. The counterweight trebuchet appeared in both Christian and Muslim lands around the Mediterranean in the 12th century and it was commonly used to fling projectiles weighing between 50 kilograms and 100 kilograms at or into enemy fortifications located up to 300 metres away. Its use continued into the 15th century, well after the introduction of gunpowder, the three distinguishing characteristics of a trebuchet are, The trebuchet is a compound machine—a combination of simple machines. The trebuchet makes use of the advantage of a lever. Most trebuchets are powered exclusively by the force of gravity, potential energy is stored by means of an extremely heavy weight box attached to the counterweight portion of the throwing arm. When the trebuchet is fired, the box is permitted to fall. The throwing arm is usually four to six times the length of the counterweight portion and these factors multiply the acceleration transmitted to the throwing portion of the arm and its attached sling.
The sling is affixed to the end of the portion of the throwing arm. The sling contains the projectile and transmits the forces generated at the end of the arm to the projectile. The sling changes the trajectory, so that, at the time of release from the sling, the couillard is a smaller version with a single stem or platform instead of the usual double A frames. The counterweight is split into two halves to avoid hitting the center stem, the trebuchet derives from the ancient sling, and originated in China. A variation of the sling, called staff sling, contained a piece of wood to extend the arm. This evolved into the traction trebuchet in which a number of people pulled on ropes attached to the arm of a lever that has a sling on the long arm. This type of trebuchet was smaller and had a shorter range and these teams would sometimes be local citizens helping in the siege or in the defense of their town. Traction trebuchets had a range of 100 to 200 feet when casting weights up to 250 pounds, the first traction trebuchets were invented by the Chinese sometime before the 4th century BC.
The first traction trebuchets may have used by the Mohists in China as early as 4th century BC. At the Battle of Caishi in 1161, trebuchets operated by Song Dynasty soldiers fired bombs of lime, recent work showed that the traction trebuchet was transferred to the eastern Mediterranean by the late 6th century during the Northern Zhou or Sui dynasty
Falster
Falster is an island in south-eastern Denmark with an area of 486.2 km2 and 43,398 inhabitants as of 1 January 2010. Located in the Baltic sea, it is part of Region Sjælland and is administered by Guldborgsund Municipality, Falster includes Denmarks southernmost point, Gedser Odde, near Gedser. The largest town is Nykøbing Falster with over 40% of the islands inhabitants, other towns include Stubbekøbing, Nørre Alslev and Gedser. Falster has motor and railway links both to the island of Zealand to the north and to the island of Lolland to the south-west. These links lead to the islands of Masnedø and Farø. European route E47 links Copenhagen to Hamburg via Falster, from medieval times until 1766, most of Falster belonged to the crown. King Valdemars Census Book from c.1231 lists all the parishes, Falsters two main towns, Nykøbing and Stubbekøbing, were both founded towards the end of the 12th century. In medieval times, the island was marked by wars with the Wends in 1158, the census of 1509 includes only 90 of the 110 villages mentioned earlier.
By contrast, it mentions 29 new settlements mainly along the coast. In the 16th century, Falster had a number of farms which were owned by the nobility but, from 1560 to 1630. Therefore, Falster could therefore be used as the dowry for Frederick IIIs wife, Sophie Amalie but as a result of the taxes which resulted. Falster was managed as an estate from 1718 until 1766 when it was sold by auction and divided up into ten large farms. But as the fields had to be prepared through the serfdom of local peasants, the villages were replaced by the community from 1778 to 1814, and gradually moved to freehold tenants, a process which was only completed in about 1860. There was an increase in the cultivation of sugar beet which was processed in factories at Nykøbing and Stubbekøbing between 1890 and 1914, many seasonal workers, especially women, from Sweden and Poland came to help with harvesting the sugar beet and some of them stayed. With the new railway from Orehoved to Nykøbing in 1872 and railway ferries to Masnedø and Warnemünde and its position was reinforced by the construction of the Storstrøm Bridge and Farø Bridges.
Since 1975, Falster has been marked by high unemployment as a result of harder times for farming and industry. As of 2012, populations were as follows, With its marinas, sandy beaches and cycle tracks, one of the most popular resorts is Marielyst on the east coast. Nykøbing offers a number of attractions including its atmosphere with narrow streets
Marielyst
Marielyst is a small town and seaside resort some 12 kilometres south of Nykøbing on the Danish island of Falster. Its long sandy beach has led to a summer house development with some 6,000 holiday homes. As of 2015, it has a population of 693, Marielyst is situated on the Baltic coast of Falster. At the end of the last ice age some 12,000 years ago, initially there were three islands, Langø, Bøtø and Bøtø Fang, but these were silted up. However, an inlet remained at Gedesby leading into the Bøtø Nor lake stretching 16 km from Sildestrup to Gedesby, between 1860 and 1865, the inlet was closed, a dike was built and the inland area was drained. Marielysts white sand beach is the most western of those along the zone of five countries. In a survey of ten Danish beaches carried out in 2011, Marielysts beach, stretching no less than 20 kilometres, the soft white sandy beach was judged to be particularly suitable for children. Other localities along the beach are Eikenøre, Stovby, behind the sand dunes along the beach, there is a dyke which was built at the end of the 19th century to protect the inland area from flooding, enabling it to be used for farming.
A footpath offers pleasant walks over the full 20 km stretch next to the sea, after the sea floods caused by a storm in 1872, Hans Jørgensen succeeded in draining the land in the area for farming. He named his new farmhouse Marielyst after his wife Marie, in 1906, the lawyer Frederik Graae converted the farmhouse into a hotel with 12 rooms called Marielyst Østersøbad. He opened it on 28 July 1906, inviting local and national celebrities as well as representatives of the international press, thanks to its great success, additional accommodation was made available in another farmhouse, Nørrevang. In 1908–1909, Graae built three sophisticated Art Nouveau homes called Troldtøj, Kitwalde and Tannhäuser after works by Holger Drachmann, decorated with paintings by Olaf Rude and Carl Holm, they were purchased by wealthy families from Copenhagen. Local residents followed in the 1920s, building mostly two-storey brick houses with a sea view from the first floor, wooden houses followed as land prices rose.
In 1919, Laurits Hansen opened the first grocery on Marielyst Torv, the Tannhäuser residence became a guest house in 1932, with a restaurant in 1939. After the Storstrøm Bridge to Zealand was opened in 1937, Strandhotellet was built in 1938, another hotel, Marielyst Strandhotel, came in 1956 but was torn down in 2006 to make way for holiday apartments. Around 1940, Marielyst became a summer house development with some 500 small holiday homes located between Bøtøvej and Storkevej. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was renewed interest in summer houses in the surrounding area, today there are over 6,000 summer houses in and around Marielyst. Marielyst, built in the style of a Mediterranean resort, has a selection of hotels, shops, holiday apartments
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired in the Middle Ages.
In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period.
Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date.
English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
Guldborgsund
For the Danish municipality, Guldborgsund Municipality. Guldborgsund is the strait between the Danish islands of Lolland and Falster and it connects Smålandsfarvandet in the north with the Bay of Mecklenburg in the south. It is navigable for craft of up to 6 metres draught in its part and is used for commercial traffic to Nykøbing Falster. The southern part is much shallower with a depth of approximately 2 metres. Guldborgsund is crossed by two bridges, Frederick IX Bridge at Nykøbing and Guldborgsund Bridge at Guldborg, at the northern end of the strait. There is a tunnel carrying euro route E47 from Copenhagen. Nykøbing Falster and Sundby have all have marinas in Guldborgsund, the open-air museum Middle Ages Centre has got a museum harbour which was dug out in the mid 1990s. This is the point for sailing with reconstructed medieval ships such as Gedesbyskibet. Guldborgsund was the location of the 2005 KFUM-Spejderne i Danmark National Jamboree, Guldborgsund is the name of a minesweeper that served in the Royal Danish Navy from 1956-1993.
It was built by Stephens Brothers Inc. in Stockton, United States, two 900 hp General Motors diesel engines powered it to a max speed of 13.5 knots. With 375 tons of displacement, it had a range of 3,600 nautical miles at 7 knots and it was crewed by 33-37 men, including four officers, during its service. It was decommissioned on May 4,1993
Lolland Municipality
Lolland municipality is a municipality in Region Sjælland in Denmark. According to Municipal And Regional Key Figures it covers an area of 885.40 km² and has a population of 42,285, Guldborgsund Municipality occupies the eastern part of the island. The city hall and the seat of the mayor of Lolland municipality is in Maribo while the largest town is Nakskov, there are 31 members - including the mayor - of the municipal council. The current mayor - elected for the 2014-17 term of office - is a Socialdemocrat, the 1st deputy mayor is from the agrarian liberal Venstre and the 2nd deputy mayor is from Dansk Folkeparti. On Monday 1 January 2007 Lolland municipality was created as the result of Kommunalreformen, covering the municipalities of Holeby, Højreby, Nakskov, Rudbjerg. This is on a par with Sønderborg Municipality, which is made up of 7 old municipalities, Lolland municipality is a countryside municipality largely dependent on its agricultural industry featuring an open and intensively farmed landscape.
The sugar beets are refined in up to date processing facilities owned by Nordzucker in Nakskov, Nordzucker has a sugar processing factory in Nykøbing Falster in neighboring Guldborgsund Municipality. The focus on green technologies has resulted in another landscape feature, the shipyard Nakskov Skibsværft founded in 1916 by East Asiatic Companys H. N. Andersen, who was born in Nakskov, was the largest single workplace in the area with 1,500 employees. MAN B&W Diesel A/S in Holeby, among the manufactured products are, medical devices made of plastic, breakfast cereals for private label companies. In the census taken 1965 the municipalities within the area covering the present municipality had 61,879 inhabitants, in 2013 alone, population numbers fell by 2. 043%, from 44,436 to 43,528 inhabitants. From 1965 to 1 January 2017, this represents a fall of 19,594 in the population number, the Church of Denmark has 52 parishes in the municipality as of 1 August 2016. The new parish Utterslev-Herredskirke-Løjtofte has 769 inhabitants with 675 members of the church.
Although the transport to Copenhagen from Lolland can be undertaken by road and railway, for most people having visited or visiting Germany on the other side of Fehmarn Belt, Lolland is just a drive-by place along the motorway route. The railway passenger service in the municipality is operated by the railway company Lokaltog, subsidized by the government through Movia. A ferry route connects Lolland with Langeland to the west, the traffic corridor between Hamburg and Copenhagen is linked via car and train ferries sailing between Rødby and Puttgarden two times an hour. This ferry route will have competition from the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link road and railway tunnel which is scheduled to be finished in 2026 and to open in 2028. The tunnel will be located in a corridor traversing Fehmarn Belt between a location east of the port of Rødbyhavn and a location east of the port of Puttgarden, when the tunnel is finished, Rødbyhavn will not have a train station. It will be located in Holeby instead, which is 10 kilometers inland
Gedser
Gedser is a town at the southern tip of the Danish island of Falster in the Guldborgsund Municipality in Sjælland region. It is the southernmost town in Denmark, the town has a population of 768. It is an important port town on the Baltic Sea, Gedser Church was designed by Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint and dates from 1915. Gedser was the first place German troops landed during the occupation of Denmark on April 9,1940 at 3,55 in the morning. A number of armored cars and infantry troops hid in the ferry from Rostock and advanced into the harbor as soon as the ship docked, until January 1,2007, Gedser was a parish of the former municipality of Sydfalster in Storstrøm County. In the Kommunalreformen that municipality merged with Nykøbing Falster, Nysted, Nørre Alslev, situated in the southernmost part of Denmark on the island of Falster, Gedser is a port town on the Baltic Sea. European route E55 passes through the town, Gedser Odde is the southernmost point in Denmark. A car ferry route has operated from Gedser to Rostock in Germany since 1995, there were train and car ferry routes to Großenbrode and Warnemünde and a car ferry route to Travemünde, all in Germany.
A bridge linking Gedser to Rostock was proposed, although a decision was made in 2007 to support a fixed link across the Fehmarn Belt to the west of Gedser instead. Gedser travel guide from Wikivoyage Gedser website
