Origins of Copenhagen

Copenhagen began as a small fishing and trading settlement on the Oresund strait. Around the middle of the twelfth century, Bishop Absalon, an adviser to King Valdemar I, built a fortress on the islet of Slotsholmen to defend the harbour against Wendish pirates. The settlement around it, then called Havn, meaning harbour, received town rights in the thirteenth century, and its position at the entrance to the Baltic made it a prosperous trading place. It became the capital of Denmark in the fifteenth century, under Eric of Pomerania, replacing Roskilde. Over the following centuries it grew into the political, cultural and commercial centre of the Danish kingdom.

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