Denmark

And now for something completely different...

My wife wants me to write about Denmark! I've never been, but here goes:

Denmark appears to be a good place to be. In 2006 and 2007, surveys ranked Denmark as "the happiest place in the world," based on standards of health, welfare, and education. Denmark was also ranked third most "peaceful" nation, behind Norway and New Zealand. Copenhagen was voted one of the most liveable cities.

The weather is temperate. The winters are not particularly cold with mean temperatures in January and February of 0.0 °C (32 F) and the summers are cool with mean temperature in August 15.7 ° C (60 F). As a northern country, the lengths of the days vary. The shortest and longest days of the year have traditionally been celebrated.

The celebration for the shortest day corresponds roughly with Christmas (Danish: jul) and modern celebrations concentrate on Christmas Eve, 24 December. The Norse word jól is a plural, indicating that pre-Christian society celebrated a season with multiple feasts. Christianity introduced the celebration of Christmas, resulting in the use of the Norse name also for the Christian celebration. Efforts by the Catholic Church to replace this name with kristmesse were unsuccessful.

Denmark has the third highest proportion of atheists and agnostics in the world, estimated to be between 43% and 80%. According to official state statistics, 83.0% of Danes are members of the Lutheran state church, the Danish National Church (Den Danske Folkekirke), also known as the Church of Denmark.

Denmark has a population of over 5.4 million as of January 1, 2007, with a median age of 39.8 years. Danish is the official language, but English and German are widely spoken. During recent years, anti-immigration sentiment has resulted in some of the toughest immigration laws in the European Union. "Folk high schools" are social, informal education structures without tests or grades but emphasising communal learning, self-discovery, enlightenment, and learning how to think. By law, all college education in Denmark must not charge tuition or fees.

Historically, Denmark, like its Scandinavian neighbors, has been one of the most socially progressive cultures in the world. For example, in 1969, Denmark was the first country to legalize pornography. And in 1989, Denmark enacted a registered partnership law, being the first country in the world to grant same-sex couples nearly all of the rights and responsibilities of marriage.

Lars Ulrich from Metallica is from Denmark.

Denmark consists of the peninsula of Jutland (Jylland) and 443 named islands (1419 islands above 100 m² in total (2005)). Of these, 76 are inhabited. The country is flat, with little elevation. There are 4,344 miles of coastline. A perfect circle encompassing the same area as Denmark would have a circumference of 461 miles. No location in Denmark is farther from the coast than 32.3 mi.

Drugs are not legal there (maybe you're thinking of the Netherlands, and Amsterdam, where "soft drugs" are legal). But prostitution is.

The etymology of the word Denmark (Kongeriget Danmark, the kingdom of Denmark) is a matter of debate. The debate is centered primarily around the prefix 'Dan' and whether it refer to the Dani or a historical person Dan and the exact meaning of the -mark ending.

economy
The currency is the Danish krone, and the per capita income is $46,600 (6th highest). It has the world's highest taxes, with 77.4% employment (3rd highest [age 15-64], behind Switzerland and Iceland). It also has the world's lowest income inequality, going by Gini-coefficient – 0.247. (Namibia has the highest, with a coefficient of 0.707).

The Danish welfare model is accompanied by a taxation system that is both broad based (25% VAT, not including excise, duty and tax) and with world record income tax rates (minimum tax rate for adults is 42% scaling to over 60% except for the residents of Ertholmene that escape the otherwise ubiquitous 8% healthcare tax fraction of the income taxes). The most infamous tax approximately triples the price of private vehicles.

Denmark is home to many multi-national companies, among them: A. P. Moller-Maersk Group(Maersk - international shipping), Lego (children's toys), Bang & Olufsen (hi-fi equipment), Carlsberg (beer), Vestas (wind turbines), and the pharmaceutical companies Lundbeck and Novo Nordisk.

Main exports include: Animal Foodstuffs, Chemicals, Dairy Products, Electronic Equipment, Fish, Furniture, Leather, Machinery, Meat, Oil and Gas, and Sugar.

I wanted to write mainly about why it's happy, but I guess I'll just have to go! (See, taxes aren't always so bad!) Maybe they can export happiness.

Here's a quote by Stephen Colbert at Bush's whimsical last press dinner: "I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least," he told the audience, "and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq".