Fredericia () is a town located in Fredericia Municipality in the southeastern part of the

Jutland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...

peninsula in Denmark. The city is part of the Triangle Region, which includes the neighbouring cities of

Kolding Kolding () is a Danish seaport located at the head of Kolding Fjord in the Region of Southern Denmark. It is the seat of Kolding Municipality. It is a transportation, commercial, and manufacturing centre, and has numerous industrial companie ...

and

Vejle Vejle () is a city in Denmark, in the southeast of the Jutland Peninsula at the head of Vejle Fjord, where the Vejle River and Grejs River and their valleys converge. It is the site of the councils of Vejle Municipality ('' kommune'') and th ...

. It was founded in 1650 by Frederick III, after whom it was named. The city itself has a population of 40,886 (1 January 2022)BY3: Population 1. January by urban areas, area and population density
The Mobile Statbank from Statistics Denmark and the Fredericia Municipality has a population of 50,324 (2014).

History

After the devastation caused by the

Thirty Years War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battl ...

in a largely unfortified Jutland, King

Christian IV Christian IV (12 April 1577 – 28 February 1648) was King of Denmark and Norway and Duke of Holstein and Schleswig from 1588 until his death in 1648. His reign of 59 years, 330 days is the longest of Danish monarchs and Scandinavian monar ...

realized the necessity of building a strong fortress in Jutland, and decided that this project could be combined with his plans for building a large town in Jutland. A fortified encampment was built on a point of land called Lyngs Odde, near the current location of Fredericia, with a rampart stretching to either side of the point, thus protecting the encampment from attacks. However, the fortifications were not perfect, and when Swedish Field Marshal

Lennart Torstenson Lennart Torstensson, Count of Ortala, Baron of Virestad (17 August 16037 April 1651), was a Swedish Field Marshal and military engineer. Early career He was born at Forstena manor in Västergötland. His parents were Märta Nilsdotter Posse a ...

invaded Jutland, he was able to break through the ramparts. It was Frederick III who was finally able to complete the plans for the fortification, also adding a flank fortification on nearby Bers Odde as suggested by Danish Marshal of the Realm

Anders Bille Anders Bille (19 March 1600 – 10 November 1657) was the Danish Rigsmarsk, the officer leading the entire armed forces of Denmark, from 1642.

. On 15 December 1650, the King signed the document giving the town its first privileges, and work on the new fortifications could begin. In 1651, the town was named Frederiksodde (Frederick's Point) after the king, and on 22 April 1664, it was given the new

Latinized name Latinisation (or Latinization) of names, also known as onomastic Latinisation, is the practice of rendering a ''non''-Latin name in a Latin style. It is commonly found with historical proper names, including personal names and toponyms, and in ...

of Fredericia. Every 6 July, the town of Fredericia holds a festival to commemorate the 1849

Battle of Fredericia The Battle of Fredericia was fought between soldiers of Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark on 6 July 1849 at Fredericia in Denmark. The battle was a part of the First Schleswig War, which was a conflict between Schleswig-Holstein, supported by sever ...

, fought during the First War of Schleswig, in which Danish troops won a victory over the

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sc ...

rebels who were laying siege to the town. Fredericia's landmark, ''Landsoldaten'', was unveiled on 6 July 1858.

Present

The municipality today is part of the

East Jutland metropolitan area East Jutland metropolitan area ( da, Byregion Østjylland) is a potential metropolitan area in Jutland and Funen, Denmark. Aarhus is the most populated city in the region. The National Planning Report of 2006, published by the Danish Environme ...

with 1.2M inhabitants, and is the site of Fredericia municipality's municipal council. The town is a major barracks, home to the

Royal Danish Army The Royal Danish Army ( da, Hæren, fo, Herurin, kl, Sakkutuut) is the land-based branch of the Danish Defence, together with the Danish Home Guard. For the last decade, the Royal Danish Army has undergone a massive transformation of structures ...

's Signals Regiment (''

Telegrafregimentet The Command Support Regiment ( da, Føringsstøtteregimentet) is a regiment of the Royal Danish Army. It was established in 1951 with the purpose of training and equipping units to support the Danish army with wartime Command, Control and Communica ...

''), which is located at Rye's Barracks (''Ryes Kaserne'') and Bülow's Barracks (''Bülows Kaserne'').

Transportation

The town is one of Denmark's largest traffic hubs.

Rail

Fredericia railway station Fredericia station ( da, Fredericia Banegård) is a railway station serving the city of Fredericia in Jutland, Denmark. Fredericia station is an important railway junction where the Copenhagen-Fredericia Line, the Fredericia-Aarhus Line, and th ...

is the principal railway station of the town. It is an important

railway junction A junction, in the context of rail transport, is a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge. This implies a physical connection between the tracks of the two routes (assuming they are of the same gauge), provided by ''points'' ( ...

where the Copenhagen-Fredericia Line, the Fredericia-Aarhus Line, and the Flensburg-Fredericia Line all meet.Fredericia Banegård
o
Danske Jernbaner
/ref> The station was opened in 1935 together with the opening of the

Little Belt Bridge The Little Belt Bridge ( da, Lillebæltsbroen), also known as the Old Little Belt Bridge ( da, Den gamle Lillebæltsbro), is a truss bridge over the Little Belt strait in Denmark. It spans from Snoghøj on the Jutland side to Middelfart on Fun ...

across the

Little Belt The Little Belt (, ) is a strait between the island of Funen and the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark. It is one of the three Danish Straits that drain and connect the Baltic Sea to the Kattegat strait, which drains west to the North Sea and Atla ...

. The train services are operated by the

railway company A railway company is a company within the rail industry. It can be a manufacturing firm or an rail transport operations, operator. Some railway companies operate both the trains and the track, while, particularly in the European Union, operation ...

DSB DSB may refer to: Science, technology and devices * DsbA, a bacterial member of the Dsb (disulfide bond) family of enzymes * Double strand break, a break in both DNA strands, part of DNA repair * in telecommunications, double-sideband transmission ...

. It offers direct

InterCity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...

services to

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

Odense Odense ( , , ) is the third largest city in Denmark (behind Copenhagen and Aarhus) and the largest city on the island of Funen. As of 1 January 2022, the city proper had a population of 180,863 while Odense Municipality had a population of 20 ...

, Aarhus, Aalborg, Struer,

Esbjerg Esbjerg (, ) is a seaport town and seat of Esbjerg Municipality on the west coast of the Jutland peninsula in southwest Denmark. By road, it is west of Kolding and southwest of Aarhus. With an urban population of 71,698 (1 January 2022)

Sønderborg (; german: Sonderburg ) is a Danish town in the Region of Southern Denmark. It is the main town and the administrative seat of Sønderborg Municipality (Kommune). The town has a population of 27,766 (1 January 2022),Flensburg and

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

Air

The nearest

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

with scheduled national and

international flight An international flight is a form of commercial flight within civil aviation where the departure and the arrival take place in different countries. Regular international passenger air service began in August 1919 with a flight going from Lond ...

s is

Billund Airport Billund Airport ( da, Billund Lufthavn) is an airport in Denmark. Located northeast of Billund, it serves as one of the country's busiest air cargo centres, as well as a charter airline destination. Most major European airports are connected ...

45 km west of Fredericia.

Notable people

* Jens Mikkelsen Ehrenborg (1621 in Fredericia – 1690) an officer, civil servant, and Swedish nobleman * Jørgen Balthazar Winterfeldt (1732 in Fredericia - 1821) a naval officer and philanthropist * Hartvig Philip Rée (1778 in Fredericia – 1859) a Jewish-Danish merchant and author * Poul Pagh (1796 in Fredericia – 1870) a Danish merchant and shipowner *

Frederick Brockhausen Frederick Carl Brockhausen, Jr. (May 20, 1858 – June 16, 1929) was a cigar maker and trade union activist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin who spent four terms as a Socialist Party of America, Socialist member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. Backg ...

(1858 in Fredericia – 1929) a cigar maker, trade unionist and US politician *

Vilhelm Buhl Vilhelm Buhl (16 October 1881 – 18 December 1954) was Prime Minister of Denmark from 4 May 1942 to 9 November 1942 as head of the ''Unity Government'' (the Cabinet of Vilhelm Buhl I) during the German occupation of Denmark of World War II, unti ...

(1881 in Fredericia – 1954) the 11th

Prime Minister of Denmark The prime minister of Denmark ( da, Danmarks statsminister, fo, Forsætisráðharri, kl, Ministeriuneq) is the head of government in the Kingdom of Denmark comprising the three constituent countries: Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Island ...

Erik Holtved Dr. Erik Holtved ( Greenlandic nickname: ''Erissuaq''; translation: "Big Eric") (21 June 1899 in Fredericia, Denmark – 1981 in Copenhagen, Denmark) was a Danish artist, archaeologist, linguist, and ethnologist. He was the first university ...

(1899 in Fredericia – 1981) an archaeologist,

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...

and artist * Jørgen Vig Knudstorp (born 1968 in Fredericia), businessman, former CEO of

Lego Group Lego A/S (trade name: The Lego Group) is a Danish toy production company based in Billund, Denmark. It manufactures Lego-brand toys, consisting mostly of interlocking plastic bricks. The Lego Group has also built several amusement parks aro ...

The Arts

Carit Etlar Carit Etlar, the better-known pen name of Carl Brosbøll (August 7, 1816 – May 9, 1900), was a Danish author, known mostly for his 1853 book ''Gjøngehøvdingen'' about the eponymous Svend Poulsen Gønge. Biography Born Johan Carl Christian Br ...

(1816 in Fredericia – 1900), Danish author of ''Gjøngehøvdingen'' in 1853 * Magdalene Thoresen (1819 in Fredericia – 1903) a Norwegian poet, novelist and playwright *

Henrik Pontoppidan Henrik Pontoppidan (24 July 1857 – 21 August 1943) was a Danish realist writer who shared with Karl Gjellerup the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1917 for "his authentic descriptions of present-day life in Denmark." Pontoppidan's novels and shor ...

(1857 in Fredericia – 1943), a Danish realist writer, shared the 1917

Nobel Prize for Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

* Svend Rathsack (1885 in Fredericia – 1941) a Danish sculptor * Svend Melsing (1888 in Fredericia – 1946), actor, theatre director and playwright *

Ellen Krause Ellen Margrethe Krause Rørup (29 December 1905 — 11 September 1990) was a Danish artist who, after marrying Viggo Rørup in 1937, became a member of the artists' colony in northwestern Zealand known as the Odsherred Painters. Biography Born in ...

(1905 in Fredericia — 1990) a Danish artist, joined the

Odsherred Painters Odsherred Painters ( da, Odsherredsmalerne) is a term applied to Danish artists from various periods with connections to Odsherred in the northwest of Zealand, Denmark. Some were born there while others settled in the area or painted there. While ...

Else Holmelund Minarik Else Holmelund Minarik (née Holmelund; September 13, 1920 – July 12, 2012) was an American author of more than 40 children's books. She was most commonly associated with her '' Little Bear'' series of children's books, which were adapted for t ...

(1920 in Fredericia – 2012) an American author of children's books *

Tage Skou-Hansen Tage Skou-Hansen (12 February 1925 – 11 November 2015) was a Danish writer, editor and scholar. Overview Born in the town of Fredericia, Tage Skou-Hansen graduated from Marselisborg Gymnasium in Aarhus and became a student of history of lite ...

(1925 in Fredericia – 2015) a Danish writer, editor and scholar *

Cecil Bødker Cecil Bødker (27 March 1927 – 19 April 2020) was a Danish writer and poet, most known for young adult fiction books about the character "Silas". For her "lasting contribution to children's literature" she received the international Hans Chr ...

(born 1927 in Fredericia - 2020) a writer of young adult fiction and a poet * Erik Moseholm (1930 in Fredericia – 2012) a jazz composer, bandleader of the

DR Big Band The Danish Radio Big Band (aka: DR Big Band), often referred to as the Radioens Big Band is a radio ensemble and big band founded in Copenhagen in 1964 at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). Band history Originally called the New Radio ...

Harvey Martin Harvey Banks Martin (November 16, 1950 – December 24, 2001) was an American professional football player who was a defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) for the Dallas Cowboys from 1973 until 1983. He starred at South Oak Cliff ...

(1942 - 2014), sculptor *

Kristian Blak Kristian Blak (born 31 March 1947), originally from Fredericia, Denmark, lives in the Faroe Islands where he is a composer, musician, and record executive. He is the founder of the Nordic musical ensemble Yggdrasil (named after the World tree ...

(born 1947 in Fredericia) a composer and musician in the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

Martin Zandvliet Martin Pieter Zandvliet (born 7 January 1971 in Fredericia) is a Danish film director and screenwriter. Career Zandvliet originally began as an editor, before writing and directing the documentary ''Angels of Brooklyn'' in 2002. His first ...

(born 1971 in Fredericia) a Danish film director and screenwriter *

Christian Holten Bonke Christian Holten Bonke (born 13 August 1973) is a Danish documentary filmmaker and screenwriter. He has directed music videos, commercials and documentary series for television, most recently ''Uffe’s Alternative.'' (2 episodes, DR 2015). He ...

(born 1973 in Fredericia) a documentary filmmaker and screenwriter IMDb Database
retrieved 7 May 2020 * Søren Andersen (born 1973 in Fredericia), Guitarist, Singer, Songwriter, Producer.

Sport

* Jesper Bank (born 1957 in Fredericia) a sailor, twice Olympic gold medallist in 1992 and

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

* Peter Kjær (born 1965 in Fredericia) a Danish former footballer with 459 club caps *

Thomas Sørensen Thomas Løvendahl Sørensen (born 12 June 1976) is a retired Danish footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Sørensen started his career with his local side Odense BK. After impressing on loan at Vejle Boldklub and Svendborg he was signed by E ...

(born 1976 in Fredericia), football goalkeeper, 497 club caps and 101 for

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

Patrick Hougaard Patrick Hald Hougaard (born 23 May 1989)www.ddnp.co.uk
Retrieved on 2008-07-04. is a

(born 1989 in Fredericia) a Danish motorcycle speedway rider * Annette Jensen (born 1991 in Fredericia) a Danish handball player * Sara Thygesen (born 1991 in Fredericia) a badminton player, specializing in doubles play. * Katrine Veje (born 1991 in Fredericia) a footballer, over 200 club caps and 119 for Denmark women

Twin towns

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Municipal seats of the Region of Southern Denmark Municipal seats of Denmark Cities and towns in the Region of Southern Denmark Forts in Denmark Port cities and towns in Denmark Port cities and towns of the North Sea Planned cities Fredericia Municipality 1650 establishments in Europe Populated places established in 1650