Denmark

D

Local Government

For administrative purposes, Denmark is divided into the borough of Frederiksberg, the city of Copenhagen, and 14 counties: Århus, Bornholm, Copenhagen, Frederiksborg, Fyn, Nordjylland, Ribe, Ringkøbing, Roskilde, Sønderjylland, Storstrøm, Vejle, Vestsjælland, and Viborg.

District councils of between 7 and 31 members, headed by elected mayors, administer the 275 municipalities of Denmark. The city of Copenhagen is administered by a 55-member city council and by a smaller executive body. County councils headed by mayors administer the 14 counties. The ministry of interior supervises the counties, the city of Copenhagen, and the borough of Frederiksberg. Local committees supervise the municipalities.

E

Political Parties

The most significant political parties in Denmark include the center-right Liberal Party; the right-wing Conservative People’s Party and Danish People’s Party; the center-left Social Democratic Party; the left-wing Socialist Party; and the Radical Left (also called the Danish Social Liberal Party). The New Alliance, formed in 2007 as the country’s first significant new party in a decade, represented a centrist position between the two polarized positions to the right and left in Denmark.

F

Health and Welfare

Denmark’s social welfare system dates from the 1890s, and today it is one of the world’s most comprehensive. Health insurance, covering all of the Danish population, provides free medical care and hospitalization, payment for some essential medicines, and some dental care. Most hospitals are municipal. All persons are entitled to a retirement pension. Other benefits include employment injuries insurance; unemployment insurance; social assistance for the aged, blind, and disabled; and provisions for the care of children, including daytime care for children.

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G

Defense

Denmark abandoned its neutrality after World War II (1939-1945), and in 1949 became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Yet Denmark remained somewhat ambivalent toward NATO for many years. In the 1990s, Denmark began taking a more active stance, including sending military personnel to the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991), the Balkan Peninsula during the Wars of Yugoslav Succession (fought mainly between 1991 and 1995), and voicing support for military cooperation in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states.

Every male citizen from the ages of 19 to 25, except citizens of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, may be conscripted for four months of military service. In 2004 the army maintained a strength of 12,500 soldiers. The navy includes a small fleet and a coast-defense force and has 3,800 members. The Royal Danish Air Force, with 4,200 members, is tactically under NATO command. Each service has a volunteer home guard. The volunteer home guard comprises about 64,000 members.

VI

History

People have lived on the Jutland Peninsula for thousands of years, since shortly after the last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. The earliest inhabitants were nomadic hunters and gatherers. By about 3000 BC, a farming people inhabited parts of the peninsula. They were replaced by warriors from the south about 2000 BC. By the 1st century AD, small farming villages had been reestablished on Jutland. In the 5th and 6th centuries AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who then inhabited parts of Denmark and northern Germany, invaded England.

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