Place in Mid Jutland, Denmark
Horsens (Danish pronunciation: [ˈhɒːsn̩s]) is a city on the east coast of the Jutland region of Denmark. It is the seat of the Horsens municipality. The city's population is 64,418 (1 January 2025) and the municipality's population is 97,921 (as of 1 January 2025[update]), making it the 7th largest city in Denmark.[1]
Horsens is best known for its culture and entertainment events. Horsens New Theatre is a cultural centre which holds over 200 events annually. It has managed to draw major names such as Madonna, One Direction, Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones.[3]
It is believed the name Horsens derives from the old Danish words hors (horse) and næs (naze, headland). The name Horsens has been in use since the 12th century.
The earliest traces of a city are remains of a pagan burial site and houses dating back to the 9th century. In the 12th century, the kings Sweyn III and Valdemar I issued coins in the city. In the 13th century the city got its own legal code.
Excavations have shown that the city was expanded around 1300, with a moat going around the city and its harbour. Industrialization started from the middle of the 19th century. The population rose dramatically when people from the countryside moved to the city to work in the factories. The first Danish iron foundry outside of Copenhagen was opened as well as tobacco and textile factories.
In 1992, Horsens celebrated its 550th anniversary as a market town.[4]
Horsens lies at the end of Horsens Fjord in eastern Jutland. The city is surrounded by typical moraine landscape with low hills and valleys created by glaciers during the last ice ages. Horsens is 50 km (31 mi) south of Aarhus and 30 km (19 mi) north of Vejle, and approximately 200 km (120 mi) from Copenhagen.
The city is currently undergoing a positive development with new industry moving to Horsens, or expanding their activities already in Horsens. A lot of electronics and graphical companies are based there. Horsens also has the only Industrial Museum in Denmark. The city is also home to VIA University College which brings a lot of international students to move to this town.
A pedestrian zoneIn recent years, much effort has been made to expand and improve cultural events. Several internationally known artists, such as Madonna, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Joe Cocker, Elton John, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Tom Jones, Bryan Adams, David Bowie, José Carreras, Helmut Lotti, Westlife, R.E.M., Paul McCartney, Robbie Williams, The Rolling Stones, Dolly Parton, AC/DC, U2, Rammstein and Snow Patrol have performed, or have performances planned in Horsens.
Metallica has performed several times in Horsens.
Hard Rock/Heavy Metal band Pretty Maids is from Horsens.
One of the largest cultural events in Denmark is the annual European Medieval Festival on the last Friday and Saturday in August. The town centre of Horsens is transformed into the largest medieval market town in Northern Europe with activities and entertainment for families and children of all ages.
European Medieval FestivalEvery March, Horsens hosts a Crime Fiction Festival. The Crime Festival – in Danish called Krimimessen – is an event for literary crime, mysteries and thrillers. The Crime Festival is organized by Horsens Public Library. Every year, many well-known crime writers visit Horsens.
The city is home to Horsens Industrimuseum, a museum showing the history of the industrial society. The museum shows technological development and developments in living conditions for workers.
Peter Sørensen from the Social Democrats is mayor of Horsens.
Vitus Bering, the famous Russian Navy captain, was born here.
Horsens also has a wide variety of street art, including Sculpture Alley, murals, and gable paintings.[5][6]
VIA University CollegeThe largest educational institution in Horsens is VIA University College, which offers a wide range of engineering, technical and business programmes for Danish and International students. In the summer of 2020, VIA University College accepted 1066 new students. That was 2.1% more than the number of students that were accepted to the university the year before.[7]
Horsens is the home to professional football club AC Horsens who play in the Danish Superliga. Their home ground is the 10,400 capacity CASA Arena Horsens.
From 2015 to 2018, the CASA Arena hosted motorcycle speedway, when it held the Speedway Grand Prix of Denmark, taking over as host from the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen, which had held the Speedway Grand Prix event from 2003 to 2014. Frederikslyst Speedway was another speedway venue located approximately 8 kilometres south west of the town, off the Frederikslystvej in the forest (55°48′47″N 9°43′23″E / 55.81306°N 9.72306°E / 55.81306; 9.72306).[8] It held the final of the Danish Individual Speedway Championship in 1995.[9]
Horsens is also home to professional basketball team Horsens IC who play in Basketligaen. The team plays at Forum Horsens which has a capacity of 3,300. The team has won the league 6 times most recently in 2014–15 and 2015–16 as well as winning the Danish Men's Basketball Cup 3 times most recently in the 2014–15 season.
Front facade of Horsens railway station.Horsens is served by Horsens railway station. It is located on the Fredericia–Aarhus railway line and offers direct InterCity services to Copenhagen, Hamburg, Aarhus and Aalborg as well as regional train services to Fredericia and Aarhus.[10]
European route E45 runs by the city of Horsens.
From 1853 to 2006, the city housed the Horsens Statsfængsel prison, which held prisoners serving longer sentences.[11] A notable prisoner was former minister of justice Peter Adler Alberti.
The last execution in peacetime in Denmark happened in the prison in 1892 when Jens Nielsen was decapitated in the courtyard.[citation needed]
Carl August Lorentzen was a safe cracker who became famous for his escape from the prison in 1949 when he dug a tunnel from his cell and out to freedom. When the guards discovered he was missing, they found a note from him with the words "Where there is a will there is a way". Lorentzen was captured a few days later on a nearby farm.[citation needed]
The old run-down buildings were not fit for a modern prison. In 2006 the prison was closed and the newly built State Prison of East Jutland was opened. The new prison, which is placed near Horsens, held the mass murderer Peter Lundin for a period.[12]
Since its closure as a prison, Horsens Statsfængsel has housed a crime and prison museum, and conference and business facilities. The prison grounds have been used for concerts.[13] It was considered as the venue of the Eurovision Song Contest 2014, along with two other cities in Denmark.
VisitHorsens (the local tourist office) moved to the Prison in 2013 and in 2015 a hotel called SleepIn has opened in the Prison.[citation needed]
Hans Svane Vitus Bering Public thinking and politics[edit]Horsens is twinned with:
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for
Horsens.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Horsens.
as of 1 January 2025, according to
Statistics Denmark, see
table BEF44 at statbank.dk.
1. Copenhagen 1,396,508 2. Aarhus 301,049 3. Odense 185,480 4. Aalborg 121,878 5. Esbjerg 71,554 6. Randers 64,511 7. Horsens 64,418 8. Kolding 63,645 9. Vejle 62,011 10. Roskilde 53,354 11. Silkeborg 52,571 12. Herning 51,782 13. Hørsholm 48,349 14. Helsingør 48,134 15. Næstved 45,199 16. Viborg 43,645 17. Fredericia 41,543 18. Køge 38,506 19. Taastrup 38,178 20. Holstebro 37,487 21. Hillerød 36,604 22. Slagelse 35,817 23. Holbæk 30,903 24. Sønderborg 28,333 25. Svendborg 27,616 26. Hjørring 25,908 27. Nørresundby 24,436 28. Ringsted 24,094 29. Ølstykke-Stenløse 23,382 30. Frederikshavn 22,548 Note:The population figure for metropolitan
Copenhagenincludes
Frederiksberg,
Albertslund,
Brøndby,
Gentofte,
Gladsaxe,
Glostrup,
Herlev,
Hvidovre,
Lyngby-Taarbæk,
Rødovre,
Tårnbyand
Vallensbækmunicipalities; parts of
Ballerup,
Rudersdaland
Furesø;
Ishøjand
Greve Strand.
50 most populous urban areas in the Nordic countries 1. Stockholm 1,605,030 2. Copenhagen 1,330,993 3. Helsinki 1,268,296 4. Oslo 1,019,513 5. Gothenburg 599,011 6. Malmö 339,313 7. Tampere 334,112 8. Aarhus 280,534 9. Bergen 259,958 10. Turku 252,468 11. Stavanger/Sandnes 237,369 12. Reykjavík 228,231 13. Oulu 208,939 14. Trondheim 186,364 15. Odense 180,302 16. Uppsala 177,074 17. Upplands Väsby och Sollentuna 149,461 18. Aalborg 140,897 19. Västerås 128,534 20. Örebro 126,009 21. Lahti 119,068 22. Jyväskylä 117,974 23. Fredrikstad/Sarpsborg 116,373 24. Linköping 115,672 25. Helsingborg 113,816 26. Kristiansand 111,633 27. Drammen 109,416 28. Jönköping 100,259 29. Norrköping 97,854 30. Lund 94,393 31. Porsgrunn/Skien 93,778 32. Umeå 90,412 33. Kuopio 88,520 34. Pori 84,026 35. Gävle 77,586 36. Södertälje 75,773 37. Borås 73,980 38. Esbjerg 72,398 39. Halmstad 71,316 40. Växjö 71,009 41. Eskilstuna 70,342 42. Joensuu 67,811 43. Karlstad 65,856 44. Vaasa 65,414 45. Randers 62,482 46. Kolding 61,121 47. Horsens 59,449 48. Sundsvall 58,807 49. Vejle 57,655 50. Lappeenranta 55,743RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4