The lowdown on the Danish krone
The oldest currency in Denmark can be dated all the way back to the 10th century, when coins known as korsmønter or ‘cross coins’ were minted by Harald Bluetooth. Danish coins back in these early days were generally based on a silver standard, but the value of the metal that made the coins would often fall and would end up not matching the value of the coins. Because this was usually done in order to make the monarchy and the state money, people ended up losing trust in the coins.
In 1619, a brand new currency was introduced in Denmark in order to try and rebuild trust: the Danish rigsdaler. Under this currency, 12 penning was equal to one skilling, 16 skilling to one mark, six mark to one rigsdaler and eight mark to one krone, remaining this way until 1st January of 1875 when the new krone was introduced (and the plural is kroner not krones, in case you’re wondering).
The new krone replaced the rigsdaler at a rate of two kroner to one rigsdaler, and put the krone on the gold standard at a rate of 2480 kroner to one kilogram of gold. This new krone was a part of the Scandinavian Monetary Union created in 1873 and lasting until the First World War. In the union were the three Scandinavian countries, and the currency was known as krone in Denmark and Norway, and as krona in Sweden, with the word meaning ‘crown’ in all three languages. All three currencies were on the gold standard at the same rate of 2480 to one kilogram of gold.
Even though the Scandinavian Monetary Union ended in 1914 when the gold standard was abandoned, all three countries decided to keep the names of their money and turn them into separate currencies. The Danish krone has remained ever since.
You’ll sometimes hear the 100 krone note called the hund (dog), a shortened play on words of hundrede, meaning a hundred. Likewise, the 1000 note is sometimes called the tudse (toad), from the word tusinde meaning a thousand.
A look back at British pound to Danish krone rates
In 1924, Denmark returned to the gold standard before leaving permanently in 1931. From 1940 to 1945, the krone was pegged to the German reichsmark whilst occupied during the Second World War but following the end of the war, a rate of 24 kroner to one British pound was introduced, before being reset to 19.34kr until 1967. A devaluation in 1967 left the krone at around 18 kr to the pound.
The European currency snake
After the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, the Danish krone became part of the European currency snake alongside the UK. Also known as ‘the snake in the tunnel’, it was the first attempt at creating a single currency band that would peg all of the European Economic Community (EEC) currencies to one another at a central rate against the US dollar. By 1977 many countries had left the agreement after the US dollar began to float freely, leaving it as the Deutsche mark, with just the Belgian and Luxembourg franc, the Dutch guilder and the Danish krone linked to it.
During the 1980s the krone was fixed to a basket of other European currencies, formalised in the European Monetary System (EMS).
Denmark and the euro
Under the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, Denmark opted out of entering the euro. Instead, the Danish krone is part of the ERM-II (the European Union's exchange rate mechanism) and since 2000, it’s been pegged to the euro at a rate that sits within 2.25% either side of one euro to 7.46038 kroner. In 2000, this meant that the krone was valued at around 13 to the pound.
Also in 2000, the government held a referendum to let residents vote on whether they wanted to introduce the euro, with 53.2% voting no and 46.8% voting yes.
