Danish people

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This article is about Danes as an ethnic group. For information about residents or nationals of Denmark, see demographics of Denmark. For other uses, see Dane.
Danes
(Danskere)
H. C. Andersen • Niels Bohr • H. C. Ørsted • Sweyn Forkbeard
Peter Schmeichel • Søren Kierkegaard • Tycho Brahe • Karen Blixen
Total population

c. 7 million
Regions with significant populations
Flag of Denmark Denmark 4,963,806 [1]
Flag of the United States United States 1,430,897 [2]
Flag of Canada Canada 170,780 [3]
Flag of Brazil Brazil 140,000
Flag of Australia Australia 100,000 [4]
Flag of Germany Germany 50,000 [5]
Flag of Sweden Sweden 42,602 [6]
Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom 18,493 (Danish born only) [7]
Flag of Spain Spain 8,944 [8]
Flag of Greenland Greenland 6,500 [9]
Flag of New Zealand New Zealand 3,507 [10]
Flag of Iceland Iceland 2,802 [11]
Flag of the Faroe Islands Faroe Islands 2,800
Flag of Ireland Ireland 809 [12]
Languages
Danish
Religions
Predominantly Lutheran; small minorities of other faiths; secular.
Related ethnic groups
Norwegians, Swedes, Germans, Icelanders, Faroese and, to a lesser extent, English and all Germanic ethnic groups

The term Dane may refer to:

Contents

[edit] Origins

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The current Danes are descended from an ancient North Germanic tribe originating and residing in Scania and on the Danish islands, the Danes (Dani) of e.g. Beowulf. Several other ethnic components exist in what is today the kingdom of Denmark. The modern peoples of Jutland descend from the Jutes from Jutland, and their proto-Jutish ancestral tribes, including the Cimbri, who resided in Jutland. The Dani were not mentioned by Tacitus, whose famous work Germania mentions the Gothones (Geats and/or Goths?). They seem to be, however, mentioned by Jordanes and Procopius, as the Dani. The name Dani is the etymological root of Dane. Jordanes maintains that the Dani were of the same stock as the Suetidi (Swedes, Suithiod?) and expelled the Heruli and took their lands. If Tacitus simply did not overlook the Dani, and if Jordanes's information was correct, it is possible that they first appeared, as an off-shoot of the Swedes, sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century A.D.[citation needed] There are several different legendary accounts of the foundation of Denmark. One of the legendary accounts found in the Chronicle of Lejre tells that a ruler of Zealand with name Dan had raised an army and saved his people from an invasion by the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar, that the Jutes, the men of Funen and the Scanian Provinces also accepted him as king, whence the resultant expanded country of Denmark and Danes was named after him. Dan as one or more ancient kings of the Danes are also written in other Nordic sagas.

[edit] Danes in Denmark

See also: History of Denmark

Almost five million ethnic Danes live in Denmark today.[1] A minority of approx. 50,000 Danes live in Southern Schleswig in Germany, a former Danish territory, forming around 10% of the local population. In Denmark, the latter group is often referred to as De danske syd for grænsen (literally: the Danes south of the (Danish-German) border) or sydslesvigere (South Schleswigers).

[edit] The Danish Nation in a political context

Det danske folk (The Danish people) as a concept, played an important role in 19th century ethnic nationalism and refers to self-identification rather than a legal status. Use of the term is most often restricted to a historical context; the historic German-Danish struggle regarding the status of the Duchy of Schleswig vis-à-vis a Danish nation-state. It describes people of Danish nationality, both in Denmark and elsewhere. Most importantly, ethnic Danes in both Denmark proper and the former Danish Duchy of Schleswig. Excluded from this definition are people from the formerly Norwegian Faroe Islands and Greenland as well as members of the German minority as well as members of other ethnic minorities.

The term should not be confused with the legal concept of nationality, danske statsborgere (Danish nationals) i.e. individuals holding Danish citizenship.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Danmarks Statistik (pdf, written in Danish) reports that Denmark, per April 1, 2007, has 483,390 inhabitants of foreign inheritance out of 5,451,826 total inhabitants. That amounts to an estimate of 4,968,436 ethnic Danish people on April 1, 2007. The number of holders of Danish citizenship (disregarding ethnic background) was 5,167,996 at the same date.
  2. ^ The 2000 American census reports that the United States, in the 2000 census, has 1,430,897 inhabitants of Danish ancestry.
  3. ^ (List of Canadians by ethnicity, 2001 figure)
  4. ^ The ABS estimates in a 2003 study that there are between 50,000 and 150,000 people claiming Danish ancestry living in Australia. The middle number has been used, and no change since 03 has been assumed.
  5. ^ National minorities at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany
  6. ^ Statistics Sweden
  7. ^ Danish Immigrants to the UK (2001)
  8. ^ Spanish National Statistics Institute
  9. ^ The CIA World Factbook reports that Greenland, in a July 2005 estimate, has 56,375 inhabitants. The share of Danes was in 2000 estimated to be just below 12%. Taking for granted that the two ethnic groups have developed equally from 2000 to 2005, this adds up to an estimate just below 6765 Danish people in July 2005.
  10. ^ Statistics New Zealand
  11. ^ Population by country of birth 1981-2006 by country and year: Denmark, 2006. Statistics Iceland (English version) (31 December 2006). Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
  12. ^ CSO Ireland - 2006 Census