Denmark Trivia
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68 free Denmark trivia questions with answers. Denmark is a small, flat country that punches far above its weight in trivia: the oldest continuously used national flag, the monarchy that traces itself back to Gorm the Old, the Viking king who lent his name to your headphones, the toy company that outsells every other on Earth, and the fairy-tale writer whose birthday is a global holiday for children's books. This Denmark trivia quiz covers all of it. Sixty-eight questions run through geography (406 islands, a highest point you could walk up in ten minutes), Viking and medieval history, the Kalmar Union, 1864, the German occupation, the road to the EU and the euro referendum, the Folketing, Frederik X and Queen Mary, and then the fun stuff: LEGO, Tivoli, the Little Mermaid, Carl Nielsen, Dogme 95, smørrebrød, Euro 1992 and world-champion handball. It suits pub quizzes, classrooms, and anyone planning a trip to Copenhagen. Every answer has been checked against encyclopaedia and official pages, so the dates, numbers and names here are ones you can rely on.
30 of 68 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Danish word for cosy togetherness became an international lifestyle craze in 2016?
Hygge
Hygge roughly means cosiness and conviviality; in autumn 2016 a pile of British books on it turned the idea into a craze, and Collins listed it among its words of the year.
Q 02Which strait separates the islands of Zealand and Funen?
Great Belt
The Great Belt (Storebælt) cuts Denmark in two; crossing took an hour by ferry until a bridge-and-tunnel link opened to trains in 1997 and cars in 1998, trimming it to ten minutes.
Q 03Denmark's highest natural point, Møllehøj, rises to roughly what height?
171 m
Møllehøj tops out at 171 m; a 2005 survey ranked it just above neighbouring Yding Skovhøj, which is taller only when the Bronze Age burial mound on its summit is counted.
Q 04In the 'Whisky War', Denmark and which country took turns planting flags and bottles on tiny Hans Island?
Canada
Canada and Denmark traded flags and bottles of spirits on the Arctic rock for decades; in 2022 they agreed to split it, which gave Denmark a second land border after Germany.
Q 05At Grenen, Denmark's northern tip, two seas visibly collide just outside which town?
Skagen
Skagen lies just below Grenen, the sandbar where two seas meet in a line of colliding waves; the same northern light drew a famous colony of painters to the town in the late 1800s.
Q 06The island of Bornholm lies far to the east of the rest of Denmark, in which sea?
Baltic Sea
Bornholm sits in the Baltic Sea, nearer to Sweden than to Copenhagen; a treaty awarded it to Sweden in 1658, but it was back under the Danish crown two years later.
Q 07What shaped Denmark's low landscape of sandy plains and fertile hills?
Ice Age glaciers
Ice Age glaciers stopped partway across Jutland: where the ice lay it left fertile clay hills, while meltwater pouring west spread the flat, sandy plains of the west coast.
Q 08Which city on Jutland's east coast is Denmark's second largest?
Aarhus
Aarhus spelled its name Århus for six decades after a 1948 spelling reform, until the city council voted to go back to the old double A from 2011.
Q 09The Danish monarchy traces its line back to which 10th-century king?
Gorm the Old
Gorm the Old was a pagan; it fell to his son Harald Bluetooth to turn the Danes Christian, yet the royal line down to Frederik X is still counted from Gorm.
Q 10Which monuments record Harald Bluetooth's boast that he made the Danes Christian?
Jelling stones
The Jelling stones include the great rune stone Harald raised in memory of his parents; often called Denmark's birth certificate, it carries the oldest image of Christ in Scandinavia.
Q 11An engineer at which American chipmaker proposed the name Bluetooth?
Intel
Intel's Jim Kardach meant Bluetooth only as a code name, after a Viking king famed as a unifier; it stuck because both of the names lined up to replace it fell through before the launch.
Q 12Which Danish-born explorer, sailing for Russia, gave his name to the strait between Asia and America?
Vitus Bering
Vitus Bering died on the island that now bears his name: sick with scurvy on the voyage home from Alaska in 1741, he could no longer command his ship, which was wrecked there.
Q 13Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark seized the English throne in 1013 by driving which king into exile?
Æthelred the Unready
Q 21The 1814 Treaty of Kiel ended Denmark's four-century union with which country?
Norway
Norway was handed to the king of Sweden, but Norwegians refused to be bartered: they declared independence and elected a king of their own, and it took a short war to bring them into a union with Sweden.
Q 22Which 1849 event do Danes celebrate each year on 5 June?
A constitution
The signing of the constitution by Frederick VII followed popular demonstrations in March 1848, which pushed the new king to appoint a liberal government and share power.
Q 23In the 1864 Second Schleswig War, Denmark lost Schleswig and Holstein to which powers?
Prussia and Austria
Æthelred the Unready fled to Normandy, but Sweyn died within weeks of being accepted as king, and the English council invited Æthelred back to his throne.
Q 14Which Danish king conquered England and ruled it, along with Denmark, in the early 11th century?
Canute the Great
Canute the Great is best known for ordering the tide to halt, a tale first written down in the 12th century to show his humility before God, not his arrogance.
Q 15Which ruler engineered the 1397 Kalmar Union of the three Scandinavian kingdoms?
Margaret I
Margaret I had her young heir, Eric of Pomerania, crowned king of all three realms at Kalmar, then went on ruling them herself in all but name until her death.
Q 16Which branch of Protestantism became Denmark's state religion in the Reformation of 1536?
Lutheranism
Lutheranism was imposed by Christian III once he had won a civil war: he arrested the Catholic bishops, and their property was confiscated for the crown.
Q 17Which Copenhagen landmark did Christian IV crown with a spire of four entwined dragon tails?
The Stock Exchange
The Stock Exchange, Børsen, lost its Dragon Spire in April 2024: fire broke out while the 400-year-old building was under restoration, and the spire collapsed in the flames.
Q 18In 1660 Frederick III ended Denmark's elective kingship and introduced which system of rule?
Absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy followed a Swedish siege of Copenhagen: with the city saved, Frederick III played the other estates against the nobles, who had to accept a hereditary, all-powerful crown.
Q 19Denmark's slave-trading fort at Osu, on West Africa's old Gold Coast, stood in which modern country?
Ghana
Ghana's capital grew up around it: the Danish fort at Osu was one of three rival European trading posts whose villages merged into the city of Accra.
Q 20The 1807 bombardment of Copenhagen was launched to keep what out of Napoleon's hands?
The Danish fleet
The Danish fleet was the prize: after the burning city surrendered, the attackers sailed off with most of the navy, fearing it would otherwise come under French control.
Prussia and Austria took Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg, then fell out over how to run them; that quarrel gave Bismarck his pretext for war on his ally two years later.
Q 24Which treaty set up the 1920 plebiscite that returned North Schleswig to Denmark?
Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles ordered votes in two zones: the north chose Denmark by a clear majority, but the zone around Flensburg voted to stay put, so only part of Schleswig came back.
Q 25How did Denmark respond when Germany invaded on 9 April 1940?
Surrendered within hours
It surrendered within hours: facing overwhelming force and the threat of bombing raids on its cities, the government gave in and then tried to keep as much self-rule as it could.
Q 26In October 1943, Danes smuggled more than 7,000 people from which group across the sea to safety?
Danish Jews
Danish Jews were warned after a German diplomat leaked the deportation plan; neighbours hid them and, over about a month, boats ferried almost all of them to neutral Sweden.
Q 27Which country cut its last tie to the Danish crown and became a republic in 1944?
Iceland
Iceland held its vote while Denmark itself lay under occupation; more than 98% backed ending the union, and the republic was proclaimed at Thingvellir that June.
Q 28Denmark joined the EEC in 1973 alongside Ireland and which other country?
Britain
Britain, Ireland and Denmark joined on 1 January 1973; Greenland came in with Denmark, then voted in 1982 to leave, mainly over fishing rights, and was out by 1985.
Q 29Danes voted down which European treaty in 1992, then approved it a year later with opt-outs?
Maastricht
The Maastricht Treaty lost by 50.7% to 49.3%; Denmark then won four opt-outs at a summit in Edinburgh, one of them from the single currency, and a second vote passed in 1993.
Q 30In a 2000 referendum, Danes voted to keep which currency instead of adopting the euro?
The krone
The krone survived a 53% No vote, yet it has been pegged to the euro within a narrow band ever since the single currency began in 1999.