Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark and the country's largest city.

Copenhagen is the seat of the national parliament, the government, and the monarchy. Copenhagen is one of the largest cities of the Nordic countries. With the building of the Oresund bridge it is now the center of the Danish-Swedish metropolitan area Øresundsregionen. This is the largest in Scandinavia, with over 3,5 million inhabitants.

The original designation for the city, from which the contemporary Danish name is derived, was Kjøbmandehavn, "merchants' harbor". The English name for the city is derived from its Low German name, Kopenhagen. The element hafnium is named after the city's Latin name, Hafnia.

Copenhagen was one of the three last Danish municipalities not belonging to a county— the others being Frederiksberg (the municipality with the smallest area and an enclave within Copenhagen itself) and Bornholm. On 1 January 2007, the municipality lost its county privileges and became part of Region Hovedstaden (i.e. the Copenhagen Capital Region).

The municipality covers 91.3 km² (88km² of which is land), and has a population of 503,699 (2007). The Lord Mayor of Copenhagen is Ritt Bjerregaard, a member of the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterne) political party, who is head of the Finance Committee. Other mayors are Martin Geertsen (Cultural and Recreational Committee), Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard (Education and Youth Committee), Mogens Lønborg (Health and Care Committee), Jakob Hougaard (Employment and Integration Committee), Klaus Bondam (Building and Environment Committee), and Mikkel Warming (Social Committee).

The municipal seat of government is the Copenhagen City Hall (Rådhus).

Neighboring municipalities are Gentofte, Gladsaxe and Herlev to the north, Rødovre and Hvidovre to the west, and Tårnby to the south. Frederiksberg is located as an enclave within the municipality, and is thus surrounded by Copenhagen.

Copenhagen municipality was not merged with other municipalities on January 1, 2007 as the result of nationwide Kommunalreformen ("The Municipal Reform" of 2007).

[Source: Wikipedia]

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