What is the oldest tree in Copenhagen?
Copenhagen's oldest tree is Skovfogedegen, a hollow pedunculate oak that Danish sources date to around the year 1200, which makes it roughly 800 years old. It does not stand in the city: it grows 11 km north, beside Strandvejen at the edge of Jaegersborg Dyrehave in Klampenborg, opposite Bellevue Strand.
Skovfogedegen is not a Copenhagen tree in the ordinary sense. It stands 11 km north of the city, beside the road Strandvejen at the edge of Jaegersborg Dyrehave, the royal deer park at Klampenborg, opposite Bellevue Strand, and the S-train gets you within eight minutes' walk of it. Three dated Danish sources agree that it has been there since around the year 1200: the national encyclopedia, the historical-sites database Historisk Atlas, and a 2025 newspaper feature. The Danish Dendrological Society measured the trunk at 10.42 metres round, which is more than twice the girth of anything on this list inside the city, and recorded it hollow, 12.9 metres tall and living but weak. The heartwood rotted away long ago; an oak carries water and sugars in the growing layer just under the bark, so the shell holds. In the early 1800s a Catholic forest ranger used the cavity as a private prayer chamber, which is where the name comes from. Inside Copenhagen itself the oldest tree is the mulberry at Proviantgarden on Slotsholmen, tied to Christian IV's attempt at a Danish silk industry and likely 350 to 420 years old.
One of Copenhagen's trees also appears in Autumn Worth the Trip, a themed collection spanning several cities.