Life in Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,181,239 (2010) and a metropolitan population of 1,901,789 (2010). Copenhagen is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager.

First documented in the 11th century, Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark in the beginning of the 15th century. During the 17th century, under the reign of Christian IV, it became a significant regional centre. With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Oresund Region. Within this region, Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmö are growing into one common metropolitan area. In 2008, Copenhagen was the most visited city of the Nordic countries with 1.3 million international tourists.

Copenhagen is a major regional centre of culture, business, media, and science, as indicated by several international surveys and rankings. Life science, information technology and shipping are important sectors and research & development plays a major role in the city’s economy. Its strategic location and excellent infrastructure with the largest airport in Scandinavia located 14 minutes by train from the city centre, has made it a regional hub and a popular location for regional headquarters as well as conventions.

Copenhagen has repeatedly been recognized as one of the cities with the best quality of life. It is also considered one of the world’s most environmentally friendly cities. The water in the inner harbour is so clean that it can be swum in, and 36% of all citizens commute to work by bicycle. Every day they cycle a combined 1.2 million km.

Since the turn of the millennium, Copenhagen has seen a strong urban and cultural development and has been described as a boom town. This is partly due to massive investments in cultural facilities as well as infrastructure and a new wave of successful designers, chefs and architects. As of 2010, Copenhagen is ranked as the 10th most expensive city in the world according to Forbes

Annual events

• Copenhagen Marathon, Copenhagen’s annual marathon event

• Copenhagen Fashion Week takes place every year in February and August. It is the largest fashion event in Northern Europe.
• Copenhagen Carnival takes place every year since 1982 during the Whitsun Holiday in Fælledparken and around the city. 120 bands, 2000 dancers and 100,000 spectators participate.
• Copenhagen Distortion is a youth culture festival capturing the zeitgeist of the city, gathering every year (5 days up to the first weekend of June) up to 30.000 people in the streets, in shops, galleries, clubs, bars, in boats and buses, with a cultural focus on street culture, art and upfront dance music.
• Roskilde Festival is a music festival held every year in Roskilde west of Copenhagen. Gathering around 100,000 people every year, it is one of the four largest rock music festivals in Europe.
• Copenhagen Jazz Festival, which begins on the first Friday in July, is a popular annual event that is the result of Copenhagen’s significant jazz scene. The festival takes place throughout the city in streets, squares and parks as well as in cafés and concert halls. It embraces around 900 concerts, 100 venues and over 200,000 guests from Denmark and around the world. It is recognized as one of the leading jazz festivals in the World.
• Copenhagen Pride is a gay pride festival taking place every year in August. Among the events is “Tivoli goes pink” and it ends with a parade.
• Round Christiansborg Open Water Swim Race is a 2 km open water swimming competition taking place each year in late August. This amateur event is combined with a 10 km Danish championship. In 2009 the event included a 10 km FINA World Cup competition in the morning.
• Copenhagen Cooking takes place in August every year and is a food festival with a wide array of events all over the city.
• CPH:PIX is Copenhagen’s international feature film festival, established in 2009 as a fusion of the 20-year-old Natfilm festival and the 4-year-old CIFF. The CPH:PIX festival takes place in mid-April.
• CPH:DOX is Copenhagen’s international documentary film festival, every year in November. On top of its documentary film programme of over 100 films, CPH:DOX includes a wide event programme with dozens of events, concerts, exhibitions and parties all over town.
• Copenhell is an outdoor metal festival located on Refshaleøen in Copenhagen. Everything from death metal to hard rock is played on two scenes: Helvíti and Hades.