Provinces of Denmark Copenhagen Surroundings, North Zealand and East Zealand together comprise the Copenhagen metropolitan area. They are together both the planning area for the Copenhagen area, also known as the Finger Plan and the Copenhagen Public transport area. Close to 2 million people live in their joint area of about 2,770 square kilometres. This is also the best area to use for comparisons with other cities of similar size. Occasionally the East Jutland province, with around 850,000 inhabitants in 5,841 square kilometres, is labeled as Greater Aarhus, however less than 40% of its population lives in Aarhus municipality. Provinces of Denmark The
History of Copenhagen a fairly wide area. In the 12th century Copenhagen assumed increasing importance and the town was reinforced with earthworks. The Roman Catholic Church erected cathedrals in Roskilde and in Lund (in what is now Sweden), which laid the basis for further development in those regional centres. As Copenhagen was midway between the two cities, it was centrally located for traffic and trading. The earliest written mention of the town dates back to the 12th century, when Saxo Grammaticus in Gesta Danorum refers to it as "Portus Mercatorum", which translates into Merchants' Harbour or in the Danish of the time "Købmannahavn".