Do you know Denmark?

By Toke Nørby


Copyright 1995-2000 by Toke Nørby.

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Map of Denmark Facts about Denmark:
About 43,000 square km with about 500 islands but people live on only 100 of these 500 islands. We have 7,313 km of coastline but only 67.6 km of border with another country namely Tyskland (Germany) to the south of Jylland (Jutland). Denmark is a flat country and our highest "mountain" is only 182 metres over the surface of the sea! About 5,200,000 people live in Danmark (Denmark). Our closest neighbour to the east is Sverige (Sweden - not shown on the map) and to the north: Norge (Norway).

You can see on the map where I live and in the northern part of Jylland you can see a small village "Nørby". Many years ago my family took our family name after this small village.

Postal History
You should notice the town Kalundborg on Sjælland (Zealand) from where we still use to travel by ship to Århus and vice versa. This ship route is very very old and played in the old days an important role in Danish Postal History as you can see on the letter shown on my page Danish Inland Ship Mail.. The main connections between Sjælland - where our capital København (Copenhagen) is located - and Jylland has always been either across Fyn (Funen - where you see Odense) or from Århus to Kalundborg. The first time you hear about a connection between Århus and Sjælland is in 1075! (a published note from archbishop Adam from Bremen).

The very first ordinary ship mail route between Århus and Kalundborg was established in 1750 but ended in 1753 as the owner of the route went bankrupt. Many years later, in 1836, this postal mail route was reopened as a mail carrying route but now a steamboat sailed between the two cities. In the period from 1836 to 1855 you could see markings on letters indicating that they were sent mostly from København to Århus or vice versa.

The whole postal history of this route could not be described here in a satisfactory way, so I will stop here - but if you are "lucky", at philatelic exhibitions you can now and then see my postal history exhibit "Danish Mail Routes between København and Århus from 1750 to 1968".

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Last modified 2 February 1999