Blue Planet

Thanks to its location by the Oresund Strait, the Blue Planet is the largest and most important aquarium in Europe, only eight kilometers from Copenhagen's City Hall Square. It is ideally placed in Taarnby municipality, with highway, Copenhagen Airport, the Oresund Bridge, metro and international trains within a few hundred meters. The Blue Planet is one of Denmark's five leading tourist attractions; at a 2012 tourism conference on new approaches to economic growth, it was selected as Denmark's best experience-economy lighthouse for its growth potential, regional impact, innovation, feasibility, uniqueness and reason to visit. The Danish Aquarium was built by civil engineer and contractor Knud Hojgaard and opened to the public in 1939, four months before World War II and seven months before the German occupation. Closed borders made importing rare animals difficult, yet Danes rallied to keep the aquarium stocked. The new spiral-shaped building extends this legacy as a modern, energy-efficient public aquarium.