GREATER COPENHAGEN

Royal city on the sea

Throughout its history, Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark, has repeatedly expanded through land reclamation. Much of the city is built on infill consisting of waste, rubble and soil. Its proximity to maritime trade routes was key in the shaping of the city. From the outset, Copenhagen was centrally situated on the sea route into the Baltic Sea in the centre of the Danish realm that once included large parts of southern Sweden. Today, the Øresund Bridge links Copenhagen to the Swedish city of Malmö. Together, the two cities form the centre of the Øresund Region: Scandinavia’s largest and most populous urban region with about four million inhabitants.

Although the area has been settled since prehistoric times, Bishop Absalon is generally credited with founding Copenhagen in the 12th century. He built a fortress and a city wall, and under his governance the city grew in size and reputation. Subsequent bishops continued this development and towards the end of the 14th century, the city had become the largest in the country. The king took ownership of Copenhagen in the early 15th century, and ever since it has been the royal residence city.

Absalon’s original city wall soon became a stifling limit to the city’s growth, and around 1650, during the reign of Christian IV, the city’s fortifications were moved outwards. Over the next two centuries, they too became too restrictive of Copenhagen’s growth, compelling the city to expand into the sea.

The city expands

Fires, wars and disease left significant marks on the city in the coming centuries. The classicist city that we see today inside the old fortification lines was built during the early decades of the 19th century after devastating destruction.

When the city’s embankments were dismantled in 1856, it was able to expand beyond Christian IV’s fortifications. The embankments and moats were transformed into recreational areas and are visible today in the Tivoli Gardens, the H.C. Ørsteds Park, the Botanical Gardens and the Østre Anlæg park. Outside the former embankments, the districts of Østerbro, Vesterbro and Nørrebro were established, dominated by five-storey perimeter blocks in a historicist style.

Copenhagen continued to grow concentrically, and in the first half of the 20th century, it swallowed up several neighbouring municipalities, including Sundbyerne, Valby, Vanløse, Brønshøj and Emdrup. Modernist urban architecture in yellow brick went up, for example in the Bispebjerg district. From 1947, the city’s explosive growth was guided by the principles in the ‘Finger Plan’, in which the City of Copenhagen forms the palm of a hand, while development in the environs is clustered along public transport ‘fingers’ extending into the wider area of Zealand, separated by green space and recreational areas. Urban growth continued along the fingers; from the 1960s mainly as prefab housing blocks and developments with single-family houses in the suburbs of Greater Copenhagen.

Today, Copenhagen and the surrounding suburban municipalities have fused into a single urban agglomeration, and the green space between the fingers is under pressure from constant population growth in the Copenhagen region. Most of the urban development takes place in former industrial areas that are transformed into residential areas with mixed functions. A planned light rail line along Motor Ring 3, linking the suburbs of Lyngby to the north and Ishøj to the south, aims to boost development.

The impact of the Metro

Copenhagen is known as a cycling city, and more than half of the city’s inhabitants commute daily by bicycle. The many cyclists are a significant feature in the streets and general image of Copenhagen. Yet, the form of transportation that has left the biggest imprint on present-day Copenhagen is the Metro.

During the 1990s, Copenhagen was a poor city which many inhabitants left when they had the opportunity. This trend was turned around with huge investments in the city. The development of the new Ørestad district on Amager Fælled and the Øresund Bridge aimed to bring Copenhagen into the 21st century, and the sale of building plots in Ørestad financed the construction of the Metro. The continued expansion of the Metro has enabled the CPH City & Port Development, jointly owned by the City of Copenhagen and the Danish State, to sell and develop new areas in Copenhagen, mainly former docklands.

From working-class city to modern metropolis

Cleaning the harbour water was another key investment in Copenhagen’s transformation from run-down, gritty working-class city into a modern metropolis. Since 2000, public swimming baths have been established in Copenhagen’s harbour transforming its image and use. Today, the harbour is a popular, recreational urban area for locals and visitors alike.

As industrial harbour activities have ceased or relocated, the inner harbour areas have turned into recreational spaces with modern cultural institutions, office buildings and sought-after housing, in part with the intention of attracting and retaining well-educated labour.

Other former industrial areas have also been integrated into the city’s everyday life, including the former brewery site Carlsberg Byen in Frederiksberg and the old vegetable market Grønttorvet in Valby. Since the 1980s, the neighbourhoods outside the former embankments, especially Vesterbro and Nørrebro, have undergone comprehensive urban renewal, which improved both housing and urban spaces and resulted in extensive gentrification. Copenhagen is no longer a working-class city. Affordable housing is in short supply, which makes it difficult to maintain social diversity.

New island to protect the city from flooding

The sea continues to shape Copenhagen. A major rain event in 2011 made it clear that extreme weather and rising sea levels due to the climate crisis pose a real and growing threat. The municipalities in the Capital Region cooperate on flood protection, and Copenhagen continues to expand on the sea: in 2021, Parliament approved the development of Lynetteholmen, an artificial 275-hectare island north of Refshaleøen island designed to provide flood protection and potentially containing dwellings for 35,000 people. Despite good intentions, the ambitious project has been criticized for its scale and its impact on the environment and climate.