According to abbreviationfinder, Århus is the second largest city in Denmark and until 2007 the capital of Aarhus, on the east coast of Jutland, 273,100 residents. As a cultural center for Jutland, Aarhus has a university (founded in 1928), a technical college, a music college, a state library, museums (including the open-air museum Den Gamle By with 55 houses in an old town and the ARoS art museum), a theater, a concert hall with a royal music academy, a symphony orchestra and a national opera; Port city and service center with numerous trading, logistics and software companies, diverse industry (including vegetable oils, beer, textiles, machines, software; shipyards); Airport, container port, ferry connection to Kalundborg.
Attractions
The cathedral (1201 ff.) Was rebuilt in the 15th century; Inside there are wall paintings (end of the 15th century), numerous epitaphs and a winged altar by B. Notke (1479). In the Liebfrauenkirche (13th – 15th centuries) of the former Dominican monastery there are also wall paintings (14th – 16th centuries) and an altar shrine by C. Berg (1517); The crypt of a previous building was discovered under the choir.
Important newer buildings are the town hall (1938–42) by A. Jacobsen and E. Møller and the university buildings (1932 ff.) By K. Fisker in collaboration with Povl Stegmann (* 1888, † 1944), Carl Theodor Sørensen (* 1893, † 1979) and Christian Frederik Møller (* 1898, † 1988). The art museum ARoS, center for contemporary art, designed by the architects Schmidt, Hammer & Lassen, opened in 2004 near the town hall. The modernist residential complex “Isbjerget” (completed in 2013) in the port area has become the city’s landmark.
History
Aarhus was founded by Vikings around 770, making it one of the oldest cities in Northern Europe. Aarhus became a bishopric in 948 and has been the seat of a Lutheran bishop since 1537. For 2017, Aarhus was named European Capital of Culture together with Paphos (Cyprus).
Geography
Denmark borders Germany to the south and Sweden and Norway to the east and north. In the west extends the Jutland peninsula, which is cut through in the north by the Limfjord. In the North Sea are the islands of Rømø and Fanø. Large islands in the Baltic Sea are Zealand, Fyn, Ærø, Langeland, Lolland, Falster and Møn between the Little Belt and Øresund and Bornholm between southern Sweden and Rügen. Of the total of 490 islands, only 108 are inhabited. The islands are connected by ferries or bridges, the longest being the Øresund Bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö (Sweden).
Denmark is only 30 m high on average. The highest point is Yding Skovhøj in East Jutland (173 m). No place in Denmark is more than 52 km from a coast.
Most of the country is cultivated land. There is little forest, mostly beeches or conifers. In the northwest of Jutland there are large dune fields and coastal heaths, and they are particularly protected in the Thy National Park. Zealand and Møn have steep cliffs: Møns Klint and Stevns Klint. There are also remains of raised bogs, some lakes and small, short rivers.
Denmark has a maritime climate with relatively cool summers but mild winters. The wind usually blows from the west, often stormy in late autumn and winter. Rain falls all year round, but not much overall. The weather changes rapidly.
Danish language
Danish language, Indo-European language belonging to the eastern group of the North Germanic branch.
In Denmark, the Danish language has around 5 million speakers; it is also widely used as a second language in the Faroe Islands and Greenland, and it is a legally protected minority language in Schleswig-Holstein.
The Danish language separated from Old Norse in the early Middle Ages and went through three epochs in its development. The runes Danish (800-1100), which coincides in time with largely the Viking era, differed only slightly from the other Scandinavian dialects. The most important linguistic source material of this time are the runic inscriptions in the so-called younger Futhark. At the sound level, it is particularly the umlaut phenomena and monophthonging that contributed to the separation of East and West Nordic. In the time of old Danish (9th century to around 1500) Zeeland emerged as a written language towards the end of the epoch. The first written monuments – landscape rights from the 13th century – still clearly show dialectal peculiarities. The church and the growing trade (especially the Hanseatic League) had a culturally mediating and linguistically balancing effect. A change in the articulation led to a weakening of the secondary tone vowels, the voiceless plosives and the voiced fricatives. This may be related to the lengthening of the vowels in the open tone syllable or the lengthening of the consonants and the formation of a vocal fold closure sound (the Danish shock sound). In the New Danish era(from 1500) the political development influenced the borders of the Danish language area. Since the Danish union with Norway (1380), the influence of the Danish language in Norway grew. On the other hand, with the Peace of Roskilde (1658) the Swedish provinces of Denmark were lost, the southern part of Schleswig has been German-speaking since the Reformation. The language of the Bible (especially the “Christian III Bible”, 1550), humanism and the French and German spiritual life influenced the life of the language. In the 18th century, conscious language maintenance began. Important poets and thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries shaped the Danish language into today’s literary language. The spelling regulation of 1948 introduced the lower case of nouns (except for proper names).
