Himmerland is a peninsula in northeastern

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 ...

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 = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

. It is delimited to the north and the west by the Limfjord, to the east by the Kattegat, and to the south by the

Mariager Fjord With a length of approximately 35 km (22 statute miles), Mariager Fjord is the longest fjord in Jutland, and the 2nd longest fjord (Tied with Ise Fjord on Zealand), behind Roskilde Fjord in Denmark (Excluding the self-governing territory of Gree ...

. The largest city is

Aalborg Aalborg (, , ) is Denmark's fourth largest town (behind Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Odense) with a population of 119,862 (1 July 2022) in the town proper and an urban population of 143,598 (1 July 2022). As of 1 July 2022, the Municipality of Aalb ...

; smaller towns include Hobro, Aars, Løgstør,

Støvring Støvring is a town in Rebild municipality in Region Nordjylland in the geographic region of the Jutland peninsula known as ''Himmerland'' in northern Denmark. The town has a population of 9,089 (2022), and is one of the centres of industry and ret ...

and

Nibe Nibe is a town with a population of 5,433 (1 January 2022),Lille Vildmose Lille Vildmose (meaning: “little wild bog”) is a raised bog also known as the East Himmerland Moor in the hinterland in the municipalities of Aalborg and Mariagerfjord, Denmark. It is the largest remaining raised bog in Northwestern Europe. T ...

, Denmark's largest

raised bog Raised bogs, also called ombrotrophic bogs, are acidic, wet habitats that are poor in mineral salts and are home to flora and fauna that can cope with such extreme conditions. Raised bogs, unlike fens, are exclusively fed by precipitation ( ombro ...

, which sustains a rich bird life of international importance.

Etymology

It is generally assumed that the name Himmerland is derived from the tribe of the

Cimbri The Cimbri (Greek Κίμβροι, ''Kímbroi''; Latin ''Cimbri'') were an ancient tribe in Europe. Ancient authors described them variously as a Celtic people (or Gaulish), Germanic people, or even Cimmerian. Several ancient sources indicate that ...

since, in the ''Geography'' of

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

(2nd century AD), the ''Kimbroi'' (in Greek ''Κίμβροι'') are located in the northernmost part of the peninsula of

, called ''Kimbrikē chersonēsos'' in Greek (Κιμβρική Χερσόνησος). The Latin ''c'' and Greek ''k'' attest an earlier stage of Germanic in which the

Germanic sound shift Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Gri ...

was not yet completed (*''k'' > *''χ'' > ''h''), or it has been assumed the Latin form may be derived through Celtic which substituted ''ch'' for ''h'' (Germanic *, Celtic *, Latin ). If Cimbri (similar to the Welsh word for themselves ‘Cymry’ from ‘’ - fellow countrymen) were related to other Celtic tribes, the first part of Himmerland might be related in name to the river

Humber The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between th ...

Etymology

See also