ABSTRACT
Denmark is a small (43,000 km2) Scandinavian country characterized by its 7000 km coastline and almost 500 islands. Approximately 11% (486,000 ha) of the country is forest land. Denmark shares its only land border (50 km) with Germany on the Jutland peninsula (near 55oN latitude), which is the largest part of the country. Other interesting characteristics of this nation, with a population of 5.3 million, are the lack of fully exposed bedrock in the landscape (only on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea) and the low relief; the highest elevation is only 170 m above sea level. The last ice age (the Weichselian) lasted 110,000 years, and it ended 12,000 years before present (ybp). Ice advances and retreats considerably shaped and rearranged the landscape, coastline, and distribution of soils. The land surface was changed, not only by the force of moving glaciers, but also from melt water in front of the glacier running in rivers, oating in deltas, or passing though lakes. As the ice retreated, the windy periglacial climate also affected the landscape.
