Christiansfeld, with a population of 3,115 (1 January 2025), is a town in Kolding Municipality in Southern Jutland in Region of Southern Denmark. The town was founded in 1773 by the Moravian Church and named after the Danish king Christian VII. Since July 2015 it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site, highlighting its status as the best-preserved example of the town-planning and architecture of the Moravian Church.

Description

The town was constructed around a central Church Square bordered by two parallel streets running east to west. Many of the residential buildings are communal, which were typical of Moravian settlements and were used by the widows and unmarried women and men of the congregation. The church also sold its schools at this time due to the declining membership of its congregation.

From 1970 to 2007, the town was the administrative seat of Christiansfeld Municipality, but it lost this status and was placed in the Kolding Municipality as a part of the Municipal Reform of 2007 (Kommunalreformen 2007).

In 2009 Kolding Municipality and Realdania-foundation agreed on a 100 million DKK restoration project of the inner-city. In 2012 the A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond donated 60 million DKK for the restoration of the Sister's House.

Today

Today, the city is a tourist attraction: the old city core, the Moravian Church with its light, simple and impressive hall and the special cemetery draw thousands of tourists each year. Its well preserved architecture is one of the reasons it was nominated as a tentative UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993. It was finally inscribed on the main list on 4 July 2015.

The town is famed for its honey cakes. These are baked to a secret recipe from 1783. Until 2008, the cakes were baked in the original 18th-century bakery, which was then renovated because of new national sanitary standards, but still uses the original recipes.

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File:Meno Haas - Christiansfeld 1780 - mp001409.jpg|Christiansfeld 1780

File:Gudsageren.jpg|The church cemetery

File:Haderslevvej 29, Christiansfeld 2011.jpg|House in Christiansfeld

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Notable people

140px|thumb|Carl Fredrik Kiörboe, 1901

  • Christian David Gebauer (1777–1831) a German-born Danish animal and landscape painter, brought up in Christiansfeld
  • Carl Fredrik Kiörboe (1799 in Christiansfeld – 1876) a Danish-born Swedish artist, painted animals
  • George Frederic Bahnson (1805 in Christiansfeld – 1869), bishop of the Moravian Church in the United States
  • Johann Christian Gebauer (1808–1884) a Danish composer, organist and music theorist, brought up in Christiansfeld
  • Camilla Collett (1813–1895) a Norwegian writer, maybe the first Norwegian feminist, went to school in Christiansfeld
  • Samuel Kleinschmidt (1814 in Greenland – 1886) a German/Danish missionary, teacher in Christiansfeld 1837–1841
  • Theodor Brorsen (1819–1895) a Danish astronomer, discovered of five comets; went to school in Christiansfeld
  • Carl Bock (1849–1932) a Norwegian government official, author, naturalist and explorer; went to school in Christiansfeld
  • Hans Lunding (1899 in Stepping, near Christiansfeld – 1984) military officer and head of the combined army and naval intelligence services; also a bronze medallist in the 1936 Summer Olympics
  • Henrik Toft (born 1981 in Christiansfeld) a Danish professional footballer, who currently plays for Kolding BK
  • Maya Olesen (born 1991 in Christiansfeld), competitor for Denmark in Miss World 2011

See also

  • Christiansfeld Pharmacy

References

  • Official website of the Christiansfeld Centre