A geography lesson

I was just asked if there was snow in Denmark at the moment. It’s a perfectly reasonable question; they generally have more snow that we do. But I think the question was prompted by the same thing that prompts a lot of comments I get about Denmark, comments about the long summer days, the fjords, the Northern Lights. It comes down to a basic lack of geographical knowledge, one that I freely admit I used to share. You see, in the UK we tend to lump all Scandinavian countries together into one, big Nordic super-country. They are all, in our heads, just shy of the Arctic Circle, plunged into darkness for six months of the year and permanently blanketed with snow.

It turns out that’s not quite the case. Onsevig Station, for instance, is on the same latitude as Sunderland, not a town known, as far as I’m aware, for its displays of aurora borealis. 

Sunny Sunderland

There are indeed fjords in Denmark, but the land rises sheer from the chilly water to a height of, oh, maybe two metres in the lumpier sand dunes. You see, Denmark is basically an extra bit of Germany. Don’t tell the Danes I said that – they’d hate it – but it is. It’s a bit of Germany and some islands in the Baltic, and much of it looks like Leicestershire; gently rolling agricultural land with an awful lot of wheat.

Denmark. NOT Germany

To be fair, my experience is almost entirely limited to the central island of Sjælland; things on the peninsula of Jylland, thrust up towards the coast of Norway, may be very different. But I think I’ll be leaving the polar bear repellent at home.