Danes

The Danes are a Scandinavian people, they speak the Danish language and now form the dominant population group in Denmark.

Settlement area

The majority of the 5.5 to 6 million ethnic Danes living in Denmark. In the autonomous regions, the Danes are a minority in the population, in Greenland, with 11.2 % of the population and on the Faroe Islands, at 5.8 %. In the former Danish possession Iceland approximately another 1,000 Danes live and form the second largest ethnic minority.

In Schleswig -Holstein there is a Danish minority, which has its own political representation with the Südschleswiger Wählerverband SSW and is organized in a number of Danish churches, cultural and sports clubs. There are also Danish schools and kindergartens. In Germany, the Danish Südschleswiger are recognized as a national minority.

After specifying the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein their number is 50,000. In Danish clubs over 20,000 members are organized. About 10,000 residents in the Schleswig speak Danish as their mother tongue, but much more as a second language.

Finally, there are in the U.S., Canada and Argentina a greater number of Danish emigrants.

Ethnogenesis

The first written mention of the word " Denmark " is found in Gregory of Tours in his written around 590 works History of the Franks, and refers specifically to King Chlochilaicus who fell in a Flottenzug against the Franks 515. At that time men began to distinguish between the Swedes and the inhabitants of the Danish islands.

The name first appeared in Denmark to 900 in the traveler Wulfstan and Ottar. The word means something like " border country of the Danes " (Mark within the meaning of "boundary" ). The name originally referred, according to different theories, either on the southern borders of the Eider and the Danish islands and Skåneland.