Roughly 1,500 to 2,000 years old.
Ancient trees in Denmark
Copenhagen's remarkable trees come with tape measurements, which is rarer than it should be. We map 59 trees in 5 cities here. The oldest of them is Kongeegen (the King Oak) in Jægerspris Nordskov, at estimated 1,500 to 2,000 years old, based on a 1965 tree-ring investigation.
The Danish dendrological society has surveyed them one by one and filed them under working names: a beech in Frederiksberg Have is registered as Bøgen ved Bådfarten, the beech by the boat trip, which makes it the easiest tree in the city to find. A honey locust has been on record since a gardening magazine featured it in 1941. Assistens cemetery holds five of the sixteen mapped here, and the thickest tree inside its walls is a sycamore, the least exotic species in it. The oldest is Skovfogedegen, a hollow oak 11 km north of the city at the edge of the royal deer park, which three Danish sources date to around the year 1200. The country's most famous oak is not in either city: Kongeegen stands propped and hollow in Jaegerspris Nordskov, the last of three named oaks in that wood, with Storkeegen dead in 1980 and Snoegen in 1991. Two single trees have their own places too: Ambrosius-egen on Tåsinge, redated from 700 to roughly 400 years by a 1997 core sample, and Svalebøgen in Gjerrild, a fused beech failing since a trunk came down in 2022. Twenty-six trees mapped so far, across five places.
Every place we map in Denmark
1
Copenhagen49 trees · oldest 800 years2
Aarhus7 trees · oldest 150-250 years3Gjerrild1 tree · oldest 300 years4Jægerspris Nordskov1 tree · oldest 1,500-2,000 years5Taasinge1 tree · oldest 400 years
Copenhagen49 trees · oldest 800 years2Aarhus7 trees · oldest 150-250 years3Gjerrild1 tree · oldest 300 years4Jægerspris Nordskov1 tree · oldest 1,500-2,000 years5Taasinge1 tree · oldest 400 years33 species grow in Denmark
Oaks Pedunculate Oak 16 · Caucasian Oak 1 · Hungarian Oak 1 · Northern Red Oak 1
Beeches European Beech 4 · Weeping Beech 2 · Fern-leaved Beech 1 · Oriental Beech 1
Elms and zelkovas Saw-leaf Zelkova 1
Planes London Plane 3 · Oriental Plane 1
Limes Small-leaved Lime 1 · Weeping Silver Lime 1
Maples Field Maple 2 · Sycamore 1
Chestnuts, walnuts and hazels Caucasian Wingnut 1
Figs and mulberries Black Mulberry 1
Conifers Ginkgo 1 · Silver Fir 1
Fruit and blossom Japanese Flowering Cherry 'Accolade' 1
More broadleaf trees Black Locust 3 · Hornbeam 3 · Handkerchief Tree 1 · Hawthorn 1 · Honey Locust 1 · Japanese Pagoda Tree 1 · Lanceleaf Cottonwood 1 · Mexican Cycad 1 · Service Tree 1 · Southern Catalpa 1 · Tree of Heaven 1 · Tulip Tree 1 · Wild Service Tree 1
The 10 oldest trees we map in Denmark
Roughly 700 to 850 years old.
Photo: Niels Orbesen (CC BY-SA 3.0)
In fruit
Roughly 400 to 800 years old.
Photo: Finn Årup Nielsen (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Roughly 350 to 550 years old.
Photo: Hans Erik Lund
Roughly 350 to 550 years old.
Photo: Hans Erik Lund
In fruit
Roughly 350 to 450 years old.
Roughly 350 to 420 years old.
Photo: Hans Erik Lund
Roughly 325 to 550 years old.
Photo: Hans Erik Lund
Roughly 325 to 525 years old.
Roughly 300 to 360 years old.
Trees from Denmark also appear in Autumn Worth the Trip · The Autumn Harvest · The Trees the World Has Written About. See every city on the map, or open the map to find what is near you.