Aabenraa (; , ;

Sønderjysk South Jutlandic or South Jutish (South Jutish: ; da, Sønderjysk; german: Südjütisch or Plattdänisch) is a dialect of the Danish language. South Jutlandic is spoken in Southern Jutland (''Sønderjylland''; also called Schleswig or Slesvig) ...

: ''Affenråe'') is a town in

Southern Denmark The Region of Southern Denmark ( da, Region Syddanmark, ; german: Region Süddänemark, ; frr, Regiuun Syddanmark) is an administrative region of Denmark established on Monday 1 January 2007 as part of the 2007 Danish Municipal Reform, which ab ...

, at the head of the

Aabenraa Fjord Aabenraa (; , ; Sønderjysk: ''Affenråe'') is a town in Southern Denmark, at the head of the Aabenraa Fjord, an arm of the Little Belt, north of the Denmark–Germany border and north of German town of Flensburg. It was the seat of Sønder ...

, an arm of 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 ...

, north of the

Denmark–Germany border The Denmark–Germany border ( da, Grænsen mellem Danmark og Tyskland; german: Grenze zwischen Dänemark und Deutschland) is long and separates Denmark and Germany. History In the treaty of Heiligen year 811 the Eider was recognized as a ...

and north of German town of

Flensburg Flensburg (; Danish, Low Saxon: ''Flensborg''; North Frisian: ''Flansborj''; South Jutlandic: ''Flensborre'') is an independent town (''kreisfreie Stadt'') in the north of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg is the centre of the ...

. It was the seat of Sønderjyllands Amt (South Jutland County) until 1 January 2007, when the

Region of Southern Denmark The Region of Southern Denmark ( da, Region Syddanmark, ; german: Region Süddänemark, ; frr, Regiuun Syddanmark) is an administrative region of Denmark established on Monday 1 January 2007 as part of the 2007 Danish Municipal Reform, which ab ...

was created as part of the 2007 Danish Municipal Reform. With a population of 16,401 (1 January 2022),BY3: Population 1. January by urban areas, area and population density
The Mobile Statbank from

Statistics Denmark Statistics Denmark ( da, Danmarks Statistik) is a Danish governmental organization under the Ministry of the Interior and Housing and which reports to the Minister of Economic and Internal Affairs. The organization is responsible for creating st ...

Aabenraa is the largest town and the seat of the Aabenraa Municipality. The name Aabenraa originally meant "open beach" ( da, åben strand).

History

Aabenraa was first mentioned in historic accounts in the 12th century, when it was attacked by the

Wends Wends ( ang, Winedas ; non, Vindar; german: Wenden , ; da, vendere; sv, vender; pl, Wendowie, cz, Wendové) is a historical name for Slavs living near Germanic settlement areas. It refers not to a homogeneous people, but to various people ...

. Aabenraa started growing in the early

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

around Opnør Hus, the bishop's castle, and received status as a merchant town in 1240, and in 1335 it received a charter. During the Middle Ages the town was known for its fishing industry and for its production of

hops Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant '' Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to w ...

. Between 1560 and 1721 the town was under the rule of the

Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp Holstein-Gottorp or Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp () is the historiographical name, as well as contemporary shorthand name, for the parts of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, also known as Ducal Holstein, that were ruled by the dukes of Schlesw ...

The town's glory days were during the period of the 1750s to c. 1864, when ship traffic was at a high growth rate with trade to the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

, and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. It possessed a good harbour, which afforded shelter for a large carrying trade, Aabenraa having the Danish monarchy's third-largest trade fleet, after

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 a ...

and Flensborg. The city had a number of

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to bef ...

yards, which were known for their fine ships. The best known being the

clipper A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had a large total sail area. "Cl ...

''Cimber,'' which in 1857 sailed from

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

in 106 days. Fishing and various small factories also provided occupations for the population. From 1864 as a result of the

Second War of Schleswig The Second Schleswig War ( da, Krigen i 1864; german: Deutsch-Dänischer Krieg) also sometimes known as the Dano-Prussian War or Prusso-Danish War was the second military conflict over the Schleswig-Holstein Question of the nineteenth century. ...

it was part of

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...

, and as such part of the

North German Confederation The North German Confederation (german: Norddeutscher Bund) was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated st ...

, and from 1871 onwards, part of the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

. In the 1920

Schleswig Plebiscite The Schleswig plebiscites were two plebiscites, organized according to section XII, articles 100 to 115 of the Treaty of Versailles of 28 June 1919, in order to determine the future border between Denmark and Germany through the former Duchy of ...

that brought Northern Schleswig to Denmark, 55.1% of Aabenraa's inhabitants voted for remaining part of Germany and 44.9% voted for the cession to Denmark. However, since a plurality of votes in the surrounding Aabenraa municipality voted to join Denmark, the town was thus ceded to the Danish crown. After the 1948 Danish

spelling reform A spelling reform is a deliberate, often authoritatively sanctioned or mandated change to spelling rules. Proposals for such reform are fairly common, and over the years, many languages have undergone such reforms. Recent high-profile examples a ...

, which abolished the digraph Aa in favor of Å, there was fervent resistance in Aabenraa. The town feared, among other things, to lose its status as first in alphabetical listings (and reputedly the first town alphabetically anywhere in the world), because the letter ''Å'' is the last letter in the Dano-Norwegian alphabet. A later revision of the spelling rules allowed for retaining the Aa spelling as an option. While the municipality of Aabenraa and most local citizens use the Aa spelling, Åbenrå remains the option recommended by the Danish Language Board. On June 14, 2019, an low-end F2/T4

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, alt ...

touched down in Aabenraa. Two vehicles were flipped on the local hospital's parking lot.

Today

The town has a harbour, with a significant shipping trade. There is varied industry in the city, including Marcussen's Organ Building (''Marcussens Orgelbyggeri'') and Callesens Machineworks (''Callesens Maskinfabrik''). The city is the administrative center for the county.

Danmarks Radio DR (), officially the Danish Broadcasting Corporation in English, is a Danish public-service radio and television broadcasting company. Founded in 1925 as a public-service organization, it is Denmark's oldest and largest electronic media enter ...

has an office in the city. A

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

minority live in Aabenraa and they publish "

Der Nordschleswiger ''Der Nordschleswiger'' is a German-language internet newspaper in Denmark with its main editorial office in Aabenraa and local editorial offices in Haderslev, Sønderborg, Tinglev and Tønder. The media house functions and sees itself as the mo ...

" newspaper in German. Some note worthy buildings in the town are (''St. Nikolaj kirke'') from the time of King Valdemar with construction beginning ca. 1250, and restored from 1949 to 1956. (''Brundlund Slot''), erected by Queen Margaret I 1411, and rebuilt in 1807, today is home to the Brundlund Slot Art Museum (Kunstmuseet Brundlund Slot). The town is a bathing resort, as is Elisenlund close by. The city has several preserved neighborhoods from the 1800s including ''Slotsgade'', ''Store Pottergade'', ''Lille Pottergade'', ''Nygade'', ''Nybro'', ''Skibbrogade'' and ''Gildegade''.

Education

A branch of University College South ( da, University College Syd) can be found in Aabenraa.

Notable people

The arts

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (2 January 1783 – 22 July 1853) was a Danish painter. He was born in Blåkrog in the Southern Jutland region of Denmark. He went on to lay the foundation for the period of art known as the Golden Age of Da ...

(1783 in Blåkrog – 1853) Danish painter, laid the foundations for the Golden Age of Danish Painting * Anna Christiane Ludvigsen (1794–1864), poet who gained popularity in Southern Jutland *

Magda von Dolcke Magda von Dolcke (28 February 1838 in Åbenrå, Denmark – 1926) was a Danish stage actress and the director of a travelling theatre company, active in Sweden.Lars Elgklou (1978). Bernadotte. Historien – eller historier – om en familj.. Sto ...

(1838 in Åbenrå – 1926) a Danish stage actress, known for her relationship with King

Oscar II of Sweden Oscar II (Oscar Fredrik; 21 January 1829 – 8 December 1907) was King of Sweden from 1872 until his death in 1907 and King of Norway from 1872 to 1905. Oscar was the son of King Oscar I and Queen Josephine. He inherited the Swedish and Norwe ...

* Emil Nolde (1867 in Burkal – 1956) a German-Danish painter and printmaker, one of the first

Expressionists Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...

* Karl Clausen (1904 in Åbenrå – 1972) a Danish pianist, conductor, composer, and musicologist * Lisbeth Balslev (born 1945 in Åbenrå) a operatic soprano, especially in Wagnerian operasIMDb Database
retrieved 28 April 2020

Public thinking and public service

Andreas du Plessis de Richelieu Andreas du Plessis de Richelieu (24 February 1852 – 25 March 1932) was a Danes, Danish naval officer and businessman who became a Thai people, Siamese admiral and minister of the navy. He was granted the Thai noble title Phraya Chonlayutthayot ...

(1852 in Åbenrå - 1932) Danish naval officer and businessman, became a Siamese admiral and minister *

Ernst Reuter Ernst Rudolf Johannes Reuter (29 July 1889 – 29 September 1953) was the mayor of West Berlin from 1948 to 1953, during the time of the Cold War. Biography Early years Reuter was born in Apenrade (Aabenraa), Province of Schleswig-Holstei ...

(1889 in Apenrade – 1953) the German Mayor of West Berlin from 1948 to 1953 * Frits Clausen (1893 in Åbenrå – 1947) leader of the National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark (DNSAP) *

Camma Larsen-Ledet Camma Sylvia Larsen-Ledet née Søgaard (22 October 1915, Esbjerg — 12 August 1991, Aabenraa) was a Danish politician who represented the Social Democratic Party. She was elected to the Folketing in 1964, becoming Minister for Family Affairs fr ...

(1915–1991 in Åbenrå), politician, Mayor of Aabenraa 1970–1986 * Bertel Haarder (born 1944 in Rønshoved) politician, longest serving Danish minister since 2001 *

Jens-Peter Bonde Jens-Peter Rossen Bonde (27 March 1948 – 4 April 2021) was a Danish politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) with the June Movement. He resigned as an MEP in May 2008. Bonde was elected to the European Parliament in th ...

(1948–2021 in Åbenrå) a former politician and MEP * Poul Mathias Thomsen (born 1955 in Aabenraa) a Danish economist working for the

IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glob ...

Eva Kjer Hansen Eva Kjer Hansen (born 26 August 1964 in Aabenraa) is a former Danish politician, who was a member of the Folketing for the Venstre political party. She held many ministerial positions, the last being as minister of Fisheries, Gender Equality and ...

(born 1964 in Hellevad) a Danish politician -

Venstre (Denmark) VenstreThe party name is officially not translated into any other language, but is in English often referred to as the Liberal Party. Similar rules apply for the name of the party's youth wing Venstres Ungdom. (, ), full name Venstre, Danmarks Li ...

Science and business

Christian Friedrich Ecklon Christian Friedrich Ecklon (17 December 1795 – 1 December 1868) was a Danish botanical collector and apothecary. Ecklon is especially known for being an avid collector and researcher of plants in South Africa. Biography Ecklon was from Åbenr ...

(1795–1868), botanical collector and apothecary, came from Åbenrå * Michael Jebsen (1835 in Apenrade – 1899) a ship's captain and ship owner, progenitor of the

Jebsen Group Jebsen Group () is a marketing, investment, and distribution organisation founded in 1895. It is headquartered in Hong Kong with offices in Mainland China and Macau. It consists of six business lines: Beverage, Consumer, Industrial, Motors, Logi ...

in HongKong * Niels Jacobsen (1865 in Åbenrå - 1935) an architect and politician, Chairman of

The 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 aroun ...

* Jes Peter Asmussen (1928 in Åbenrå – 2002) a Danish

Iranologist Iranian studies ( fa, ايران‌شناسی '), also referred to as Iranology and Iranistics, is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the research and study of the civilization, history, literature, art and culture of Iranian peoples. It ...

* Birte Melsen (born 1939 in Åbenrå) an

orthodontist Orthodontics is a dentistry specialty that addresses the diagnosis, prevention, management, and correction of mal-positioned teeth and jaws, and misaligned bite patterns. It may also address the modification of facial growth, known as dentofacial ...

Sport

Morten Bruun Morten Bruun (born 28 June 1965) is a Danish former professional footballer who played his entire career for Silkeborg IF. With them, he won the 1993–94 Danish Superliga and 2001 Danish Cup trophies. He played 424 matches and scored 35 goals f ...

(born 1965 in Åbenrå) a retired footballer, played 464 games for

Silkeborg IF Silkeborg Idrætsforening, (; commonly known as Silkeborg IF or SIF in short) is a professional football club based in Silkeborg, Denmark. The club was founded in 1917, reached the highest level of Danish football in 1987, and afterwards becam ...

* Curt Hansen (born 1964 in Bov) is a Danish chess Grandmaster * Sidsel Bodholt Nielsen (born 1989 in Åbenrå) a Danish handball player

Sister city

Esztergom Esztergom ( ; german: Gran; la, Solva or ; sk, Ostrihom, known by alternative names) is a city with county rights in northern Hungary, northwest of the capital Budapest. It lies in Komárom-Esztergom County, on the right bank of the river ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

''since'' 2000

Gallery

File:Aabenraa Museum Sønderjyllands Søfartsmuseum.jpg, Maritime Museum in Aabenraa File:Rådhus Aabenraa.JPG, Aabenraa Town Hall File:Storetorv, Aabenraa 2009.jpg, Storetorv File:Aabenraa - Sct. Nicolai Kirke.jpg, Aabenraa - Sct. Nicolai Kirke File:AabenraaBeach.jpg, Aabenraa Beach File:Vægterpladsen 1A, Aabenraa 01.jpg, Aabenraa Handwerkerhaus File:Vægterpladsen Aabenraa.jpg, Vægterpladsen Aabenraa File:Aabenraa - Storegade.JPG, Storegade

References

External links

Aabenraa Kommune (Danish)

Aabenraa Ugeavis (Danish)

Aabenraa Port

Jydske Vestkysten Aabenraa
Newspaper (Danish)
Der Nordschleswiger
Newspaper (German) * {{Authority control Municipal seats of the Region of Southern Denmark Municipal seats of Denmark Cities and towns in the Region of Southern Denmark Port cities and towns of the Baltic Sea Aabenraa Municipality