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March 2010: Copenhagen has been named the world’s most livable city. It is also viewed as the best bicycle city in the world. Even in winter, streets are filled with commuters on bicycles undeterred by the cold, their minds on their tough Viking ancestors.
September 2008: Denmark's official website states that "One in five northern Jutlander parents believes that corporal punishment of children is acceptable, according to a Rambøll/Jyllands-Posten survey. Although physical reprimanding of children was made illegal in Denmark 10 years ago, 8 percent of all parents polled say spanking or hitting your child is an appropriate way of punishing them. The different views on child punishment gleaned by the survey were mirrored by social class -- those making less than 200,000 kroner a year were five times more supportive of corporal punishment for children than those earning more than 600,000 kroner."
June 2008: Denmark is among the top three countries in Europe with the shortest waitig time in places such as banks, restaurants, train stations and supermarkets. The average line in Denmark has 3.2 persons.
North of Germany, on a peninsula bordering the Northern and Baltic Seas. Slightly smaller than Massachusetts. Low and flat to rolling hills.
Sixty-six percent of the country is under cultivation. Around 12 percent is deciduous or coniferous forest. Around 10 percent is meadow, heath, marshland, bogs, sandhills and lakes.
The Kingdom of Denmark is a constitutional monarchy. It is a member of NATO and the European Union.
It was the base of the Viking raiders, organized as a unified state in the 900s, and adopted a constitution in 1849.
Figures unless otherwise stated are from the CIA Factbook.
Factbook: This thoroughly modern market economy features high-tech agriculture, up-to-date small-scale and corporate industry, extensive government welfare measures, an equitable distribution of income, comfortable living standards, a stable currency, a stable political system, and high dependence on foreign trade."
2009: $36,000
2008: $37,700 (ranks 10th among Europeans states, just ahead of Finland.)
2007: $38,200
2009: -4.3%
2008: -0.9%
2007: 1.6%
2009: 38.5% of GDP
2009: 4.3%
2008: 3.4%.
Denmark's economic success is built on high-tech agriculture, advanced small-scale capitalist industry and exports of machinery, instruments, meat and meat products, dairy products, fish, chemicals, furniture, ships and windmills. Danish agriculture produces a surplus of foods which are exported.
In 2003 6.2 percent of its exports went to the United States. It imports from the United States were too little for listing.
Denmark exports more food and energy than it imports, and it enjoys a balance of payments surplus.
2007: 1.28%
Typical of Scandinavian countries, government extends to the nation extensive welfare.
Gender Gap: The World Economic Forum lists Denmark as fourth in the world in the elimination of a gender gap.
Living in an urban area: 87% (2008)
July 2009: 5.50 million. Growth rate:
July 2008: 5.48 million
Once the most notorious of Vikings who plundered churches and monasteries, the Danes report with some humor an observation by a British observer in 1939, as follows: "A few decades of material prosperity and the ministrations of an over-paternal Government seem to have sapped the spirit of a Viking race which can point to 1500 years of vigorous and independent history."
2009: More arriving than leaving. A net gain of 2.48 per 1,000 population.
2009: 4.34
2008: 4.4
2009: 78.3 years
2008: 78.13.
Living with HIV/AIDS, ages 15 to 49: 0.2 percent (2003).
In 1999, Denmark spent $2,785 per person on health care, compared to $4,271 for the United States.
For a single worker without children, in the year 2001, including contributions to Social Security, a Dane earning an average wage paid 44.2 percent of his or her income for taxes. The highest such taxes were in Belgium at 55.6 percent.
In 2003, Denmark spent $302.72 per capita on foreign aid, compared to $23.76 for the United States.
Nationmaster.com gives Denmark a happiness rating of 91 percent, with Sweden and the Netherlands -- behind the leader, Iceland, at 94 percent.
Its happiness is not the result of a history of military victories. According to Denmark's website, "Very bluntly speaking, it can be claimed that the present configuration of Denmark is the result of 400 years of forced relinquishments of land, surrenders and lost battles."
Denmark has been listed in the top ten.
SOURCES:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php
Copyright © 2010 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.