Aarhus, Central Denmark Region, Denmark

Economy | Port of Aarhus | Tourist Industry | Research parks

🇩🇰 Aarhus is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately 187 km (116 mi) north-west of Copenhagen.

The largest city in Jutland, Aarhus anchors the Central Denmark Region and the statistical region Landsdel Østjylland (LØ) (Province East Jutland). The LØ is the second most populous statistical region in Denmark. Aarhus Municipality defines the greater Aarhus area as itself and eight adjacent municipalities, which is roughly analogous to the municipal and commercial collaboration Business Region Aarhus. The city proper ranks as the 2nd largest city in Denmark.

Aarhus dates back to at least the late 8th century and is among the oldest cities in Denmark. It was founded as a harbour settlement at the mouth of the Aarhus River and quickly became a trade hub. The first Christian church was built here around the year 900 and later in the Viking Age the town was fortified with defensive ramparts. The Viking Age was turbulent and violent, also for Aros, as the town was called back then, but in spite of the difficulties, the bishopric of Aarhus grew steadily stronger and more prosperous, building several religious institutions in the town during the early Middle Ages. Trade continued to improve, although it was not until 1441 that Aarhus was granted Market town privileges, and the population of Aarhus remained relatively stable until the 19th century. The 1600s, in particular, was a difficult time for Aarhus as the town suffered from several wars and the plague, and trade was also dampened by the state in favour of the royal seat of Copenhagen. Nevertheless, Aarhus grew to become the second biggest town in Denmark during that time, and in the middle of the 1700s, the once prosperous trade growth returned. The industrial revolution became an inflection point in the 19th century, as industry drove a rapid population growth, outpacing regional rivals, and the first railway line in Jutland was built here in 1862. In 1928, the first university in Jutland was founded in Aarhus and today it is a university city and the largest centre for trade, services, industry, and tourism in Jutland.

Designated as a "Sufficiency" global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, the city's major cultural institutions include Den Gamle By, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Moesgård Museum, Kvindemuseet, Musikhuset and Aarhus Theatre. Known as Smilets By (lit. City of Smiles) it is the Danish city with the youngest and fastest growing demographics and home to Scandinavia's largest university, Aarhus University. Commercially, the city is the principal container port in the country and major Danish companies are headquartered here such as Vestas, Arla Foods, Salling Group, and Jysk.

Economy The economy of Aarhus is predominantly knowledge- and service-based, strongly influenced by the University of Aarhus and the large healthcare industry. The service sector dominates the economy and is growing as the city transitions away from manufacturing. Trade and transportation remain important sectors, benefiting from the large port and central position on the rail network. Manufacturing has been in slow but steady decline since the 1960s while agriculture has long been a marginal sector within the municipality. The municipality is home to 175,000 jobs with some 100,000 in the private sector and the rest split between state, region and municipality. The region is a major agricultural producer, with many large farms in the outlying districts. People commute to Aarhus from as far away as Randers, Silkeborg and Skanderborg and almost a third of those employed within the Aarhus municipality commute from neighbouring communities. Aarhus is a centre for retail in the Nordic and Baltic countries, with expansive shopping centres, the busiest commercial street in the country and a dense urban core with many speciality shops.

The job market is knowledge- and service-based, and the largest employment sectors are healthcare and social services, trade, education, consulting, research, industry and telecommunications. The municipality has more high- and middle-income jobs, and fewer low-income jobs, than the national average. Today, te majority of the largest companies in the municipality are in the sectors of trade, transport and media. The wind power industry has strong roots in Aarhus and the larger region of Central Jutland, and nationally, most of the revenue in the industry is generated by companies in the greater Aarhus area. The wind industry employs about a thousand people within the municipality, making it a central component in the local economy. The biotech industry is well-established in the city, with many small- and medium-sized companies mainly focused on research and development.

Several major companies are headquartered in Aarhus, including four of the ten largest in the country. These include Arla Foods, one of the largest dairy groups in Europe, Salling Group, Denmark's largest retailer, Jysk, a worldwide retailer of household goods, Vestas, a global wind turbine manufacturer, Terma A/S, a major defence and aerospace manufacturer, Per Aarsleff, a civil engineering company and several large retail companies. Other large employers of note include Krifa, Systematic A/S,), and Bestseller A/S. Since the early 2000s, the city has experienced an influx of larger companies moving from other parts of the Jutland peninsula.

Port of Aarhus The Port of Aarhus is one of the largest industrial ports in northern Europe with the largest container terminal in Denmark, processing more than 50% of Denmark's container traffic and accommodating the largest container vessels in the world. It is a municipal self-governing port with independent finances. The facilities handle some 9.5 million tonnes of cargo a year (2012). Grain is the principal export, while feedstuffs, stone, cement and coal are among the chief imports. Since 2012 the port has faced increasing competition from the Port of Hamburg and freight volumes have decreased somewhat from the peak in 2008.

The ferry terminal presents the only alternative to the Great Belt Link for passenger transport between Jutland and Zealand. It has served different ferry companies since the first steamship route to Copenhagen opened in 1830. Currently, Mols-Linien operates the route and annually transports some two million passengers and a million vehicles. Additional roll-on/roll-off cargo ferries serve Finland and Kalundborg on a weekly basis and smaller outlying Danish ports at irregular intervals. Since the early 2000s the port has increasingly become a destination for cruise lines operating in the Baltic Sea.

Tourist Industry The ARoS Art Museum, the Old Town Museum and Tivoli Friheden are among Denmark's top tourist attractions. With a combined total of almost 1.4 million visitors they represent the driving force behind tourism but other venues such as Moesgård Museum and Kvindemuseet are also popular. The city's extensive shopping facilities are also said to be a major attraction for tourists, as are festivals, especially NorthSide and SPOT. Many visitors arrive on cruise ships: in 2012, 18 vessels visited the port with over 38,000 passengers.

In the 2010s, there was a significant expansion of tourist facilities, culminating in the opening of the 240-room Comwell Hotel in July 2014, which increased the number of hotel rooms in the city by 25%. Some estimates put the number of visitors spending at least one night as high as 750,000 a year, most of them Danes from other regions, with the remainder coming mainly from Norway, Sweden, northern Germany and the United Kingdom. Overall, they spend roughly DKK 3 billion (€402 million) in the city each year. The primary motivation for tourists choosing Aarhus as a destination is experiencing the city and culture, family and couples vacation or as a part of a round trip in Denmark. The average stay is little more than three days on average.

There are more than 30 tourist information spots across the city. Some of them are staffed, while others are online, publicly accessible touchscreens. The official tourist information service in Aarhus is organised under VisitAarhus, a corporate foundation initiated in 1994 by Aarhus Municipality and local commercial interest organisations.

Research parks The largest research park in Aarhus is INCUBA Science Park, focused on IT and biomedical research, It is based on Denmark's first research park, Forskerpark Aarhus (Research Park Aarhus), founded in 1986, which in 2007 merged with another research park to form INCUBA Science Park. The organisation is owned partly by Aarhus University and private investors and aims to foster close relationships between public institutions and startup companies. It is physically divided across 4 locations after a new department was inaugurated in Navitas Park in 2015, which it will share with the Aarhus School of Marine and Technical Engineering and AU Engineering. Another major centre for knowledge is Agro Food Park in Skejby, established to facilitate co-operation between companies and public institutions working within food science and agriculture. In January 2017 Arla Foods will open the global innovation centre Arla Nativa in Agro Food Park and in 2018 Aarhus University is moving the Danish Centre for Food and Agriculture there as well. In 2016, some 1000 people worked at Agro Food Park, spread across 50 companies and institutions and in August 2016 Agro Food Park management published plans to expand facilities from 92,000 m² to 325,000 square metres (3,500,000 sq ft).

In addition, Aarhus is home to the Aarhus School of Architecture, one of two Danish Ministry of Education institutions that provide degree programs in architecture, and some of the largest architecture firms in the Nordic countries such as Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, Arkitema Architects and C. F. Møller Architects. Taken together these organisations form a unique concentration of expertise and knowledge in architecture outside Copenhagen, which the Danish Ministry of Business and Growth refers to as arkitekturklyngen (the architecture cluster). To promote the "cluster", the School of Architecture will be given new school buildings centrally in the new Freight Station Neighborhood, planned for development in the 2020s. In the interim, the city council supports a culture, business and education centre in the area, which may continue in the future neighbourhood in some form. The future occupants of the neighbourhood will be businesses and organisations selected for their ability to be involved in the local community, and it is hoped that the area will evolve into a hotspot for creativity and design.

Aarhus, Region Midtjylland, Denmark 
Aarhus, Region Midtjylland, Denmark
Image: Adobe Stock Frankix #276104732

Aarhus is rated Sufficiency by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) which evaluates and ranks the relationships between world cities in the context of globalisation. Sufficiency level cities are cities that have a sufficient degree of services so as not to be overly dependent on world cities.

Aarhus was ranked #974 by the Nomad List which evaluates and ranks remote work hubs by cost, internet, fun and safety. Aarhus has a population of over 349,977 people. Aarhus also forms the centre of the wider Central Denmark Region which has a population of over 1,333,245 people. Aarhus is ranked #228 for startups with a score of 1.643.

To set up a UBI Lab for Aarhus see: https://www.ubilabnetwork.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/UBILabNetwork

Twin Towns, Sister Cities Aarhus has links with:

🇳🇴 Bergen, Norway 🇲🇽 Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico 🇸🇪 Gothenburg, Sweden 🇨🇳 Harbin, China 🇩🇪 Kiel, Germany 🇬🇱 Qaqortoq, Greenland 🇩🇪 Rostock, Germany 🇷🇺 Saint Petersburg, Russia 🇫🇮 Turku, Finland
Text Atribution: Wikipedia Text under CC-BY-SA license | GaWC | Nomad | StartupBlink

Antipodal to Aarhus is: -169.797,-56.153

Locations Near: Aarhus 10.2033,56.1532

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Antipodal to: Aarhus -169.797,-56.153

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