People defined in Danish statistics as “immigrants” and “descendants” of immigrants are more likely to live in certain regions of the country compared to others depending on their nationality, new figures from national agency Statistics Denmark show.

For example, Ukraine is the most frequent nationality for foreigners in central and northern Jutland, while Turkey is the most frequent in central and northern Zealand.

Foreigners who speak English as their first language are more likely to live in Greater Copenhagen than any other part of Denmark.

Statistics Denmark, as well as many authorities and public agencies in Denmark categorise people considered not of Danish heritage into two groups: ‘immigrants’ and ‘descendants’ of immigrants (‘efterkommere’).

A person is considered to be Danish if she or he has at least one parent who is a Danish citizen and was born in Denmark. People defined as ‘immigrants’ and ‘descendants’ do not fulfil those criteria. The difference between the two is that an ‘immigrant’ was born outside of Denmark, while a ‘descendant’ was born in Denmark. 

The data is based on the number of people of each nationality registered as living in each of Denmark’s 98 municipalities.

Around 952,200 people classed as either “immigrants” or “descendants” live in Denmark.

They are not evenly distributed across the country, in terms of either their overall number or the distribution of their nationalities.

The two groups represent some 16 percent of Denmark’s total population, with 12 percent being immigrants and the remaining descendants. The figures come from the second quarter of 2024.

Behind the national average is a marked variation in the proportion from region to region, however. Within each of Denmark’s five regions (Greater Copenhagen, Zealand, South Denmark, North Jutland and Central Jutland) there are further variations by municipality.

“The just under a million immigrants and descendants who live in Denmark are not evenly distributed between municipalities and regions. The largest proportion lives in the municipalities around the capital, as well in the largest municipalities outside of the capital like Odense and Aarhus,” senior consultant with Statistics Denmark Jørn Korsbø Petersen said in a press release.

Highest in Copenhagen, lowest in North Jutland

The Greater Copenhagen Region has the highest proportion of foreigners and their children with 23 percent – a figure that sets it aside from each of the other four regions.

On a municipal level, the municipalities with the highest proportions are similarly most likely to be located in Greater Copenhagen.

The municipality with the highest proportion of foreigners is Ishøj west of Copenhagen with 46 percent, followed by nearby Brøndby (40 percent) and Høje Taastrup (37 percent).

Copenhagen Municipality, the biggest in the country in terms of population, has a figure of 28 percent for foreign residents and descendants.

In North Jutland, which has the lowest proportion of the five regions, around 10 percent of the population has a foreign background. The municipalities with the lowest proportions are also located here — Morsø, Jammerbugt, Læsø and Rebild, each with 7 percent.

South Denmark has a foreign population of 14 percent, followed by Central Jutland (13 percent) and Zealand (12 percent).

Turkey and Poland are the most common nationalities

People who moved from or have heritage in Turkey comprised 66,693 Danish residents in 2023, making Turkey the country with the largest proportion of foreign nationals living in Denmark. Next is Poland with 56,760 and Romania is third with 46,163.

Ukraine has the fourth-highest number at 45,591, with a high number of that total having arrived in Denmark since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 and during the ongoing war. There is a very similar number of Syrians – 45,375 – many of whom arrived during the mid-2010s.

The United Kingdom is the highest anglophone country on the list, with 18,370 Britons living in Denmark last year. There were 12,650 US nationals, 2,890 from Canada, 2,735 from Australia and 2,482 from Ireland.

India had 21,309 foreign nationals or their children living in Denmark last year.

Different nationalities, different parts of Denmark

While the nationalities are not spread evenly across Denmark, some trends can be observed when plotting the “dominant” – meaning, the country with the highest number of foreign residents – across a map of Danish municipalities.

As shown by the Statistics Denmark graphic below, Ukraine is the dominant country in parts of central and northern Jutland. In South Jutland near the border with Germany, it is unsurprising to see a high proportion of German (Tyskland) nationals.

There is also a high percentage of Germans in Copenhagen district Frederiksberg and on Baltic Sea island Bornholm, while there is a pattern for Indian nationals to settle in the municipalities of Gladsaxe and Gentofte north of Copenhagen.

It should be noted that the map only shows the dominant nationality and not the number of people of each nationality who live in the various localities. As such, there may be a higher number of Ukrainians (for example) in municipalities where Ukraine is not “dominant”, compared to municipalities where this is the case.

In Copenhagen, the dominant nationality, Pakistan, comprises some 8,161 people, while on island municipality Læsø it is just 29 Germans.

A search of Statistics Denmark’s database (see below screenshot) shows that that for six English-speaking countries — Ireland, the UK, Canada, United States,  Australia and New Zealand — there is a greater number of people living in Greater Copenhagen (Hovedstaden) than in any of the other regions.