Danish Empire

• Main Author: Kjærgaard, Thorkild
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2016
• Subjects: Greenland; Norway; Iceland; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe351; http://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2F9781118455074.wbeoe351; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe351

Abstract The entry deals with the rise and fall of the Danish (1380–1814: Danish‐Norwegian) Empire from the end of the Viking period (c.1100) to the 21st century. The Danish(‐Norwegian) Empire operated on two main stages: the Baltic Sea, the inland sea of the Nordic region, and the North Atlantic between Norway, Greenland, Iceland, and the archipelagos north of Scotland. Another stage of secondary importance on which the empire operated was in the tropical world from 1618 to 1917. The Danish(‐Norwegian) Empire kept growing until the first quarter of the 16th century. The climax in glory and power was reached in the period 1397–1520 when the empire was one of the biggest and most influential political entities of the day in Europe. Its nadir was reached in 1814 when Denmark – Europe's smallest independent state – stood alone with a geographically enormous, but indefensible and valueless, empire stretching from Greenland in the high north over the Caribbean and West Africa to India.