Den Gamle By welcomes more than 550,000 visitors each year, with 30 per cent coming from abroad.
European Museum of the Year
In 2026, Den Gamle By won the European Museum of the Year Award.
Three stars and Travellers’ Choice
The museum has been awarded the maximum three stars in the Michelin Guide and holds Tripadvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Award 2026.
Highly recommended by visitors
The museum has an exceptionally high visitor recommendation score of 81, compared with an average of 62 for Danish museums.
Den Gamle By explores key aspects of Danish history, focusing on the period since 1500.
From Easter to New Year, Den Gamle By is a living museum with costumed interpreters bringing history to life.
Today, Den Gamle By comprises 80 historic buildings from 25 towns and cities across Denmark.
- Numerous homes, workshops and shops, with objects from almost every town and city in Denmark.
- A pharmacy, school, museum, post office, customs house and theatre.
- Extensive collections of objects from across Denmark, including specialist collections of toys, clothing, posters, silverware and much more. Items from the collections feature in the museum’s temporary and permanent exhibitions. You can also explore the collections online at samlinger.slks.dk.
- Seven historic gardens.
- Collections dedicated to the history of Aarhus.
Den Gamle By is home to the Danish Centre for Urban History, run in partnership with Aarhus University. The museum also houses a research library with more than 100,000 volumes.
Over the years, research based on the museum’s collections has led to the award of three higher doctorates (dr.phil.).
Den Gamle By also offers a wide range of educational programmes and experiences for visiting school groups.
Den Gamle By is committed to reducing its environmental impact. We work with local producers who supply seasonal ingredients to our cafés and restaurants, continually seek to reduce our energy consumption and offer activities that share the museum’s skills and knowledge in better building practices, extending the life of materials and objects, and repairs.
In 2025, Den Gamle By received Green Attraction certification, recognising its efforts across a wide range of areas, including food, cleaning, energy use and exhibitions.
The transition from 2024 to 2025 marked an ending, a transformation and a new beginning for Den Gamle By: the end of an era of major construction projects, a restructuring of the museum’s organisation and the start of a new strategic direction for Denmark’s museum town.
Den Gamle By welcomed 560,260 visitors in 2025, maintaining its strong visitor numbers with only a marginal decline.
View the latest annual accounts (Danish)
View the latest fundraising accounts (Danish)
The Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces has once again awarded Den Gamle By top marks. The quality assessment took place in December 2020.
Den Gamle By is a state-recognised specialist museum of cultural history with a nationwide remit, organised as an independent, self-governing institution. Under the Danish Museum Act, Den Gamle By is a museum that ‘carries out work of particular significance’.
The museum is governed by a board representing the trade union movement, the business community, the regional and municipal authorities, the university and the museum’s staff.
View the board and organisational chart
The museum employs the equivalent of 200 full-time staff, including project and seasonal employees. Around 600 people in total work at Den Gamle By over the course of a year.
Total tax payments amount to approximately DKK 26 million.
Queen Margrethe
In 1987, Queen Margrethe became patron of Klub Den Gamle By. In 2002, Her Majesty agreed to extend her patronage to the museum as a whole.
Throughout the museum’s history, the royal family has shown a keen interest in Den Gamle By and its work.
Her Majesty first visited Den Gamle By in October 1948, when the eight-year-old princess accompanied her mother, Queen Ingrid. Many visits have followed, both on official occasions and during state visits, but just as often in a private capacity. The Queen has attended performances at Elsinore Theatre, followed the reconstruction of the Mintmaster’s Mansion and experienced Den Gamle By’s Living Museum.
An interview with Queen Margrethe about Den Gamle By
‘I have known Den Gamle By all my life,’ Queen Margrethe recalls. ‘And I clearly remember visiting with my mother, both when we were staying with my paternal grandmother at Marselisborg and when the royal yacht Dannebrog was moored in Aarhus harbour.
‘Three things in particular stand out from my first visit: the Mayor’s House, the pharmacy and the fact that the museum had houses from the 16th century – that impressed me greatly. What I remember most about the pharmacy is the mummy powder they have there. I found that frightening.
‘I cannot claim to have been there every single year, but I have visited a great deal, and I am very fond of the museum.
‘Den Gamle By has a very special charm and has been put together with tremendous skill. It is as though the town envelops you completely. And you know that beneath its captivating surface lies a great depth of museum expertise and research.’
The Mintmaster’s Mansion
‘I have followed the reconstruction of the Mintmaster’s Mansion with great interest. It is fascinating to watch the specialists at work, and the project has also completed the enclosure of the museum’s square, creating a lovely urban space.
‘I live in 18th-century houses myself, and I have been involved in alterations to some of them, so it is interesting to watch this building being reconstructed from the ground up. Many of the colours hidden beneath the surface match those we have found at Fredensborg – though the craftspeople undoubtedly learnt from one another.’
The Living Museum
‘I think the Living Museum is an excellent idea. And it would be lovely to see even more of the museum’s houses brought to life.
‘It is reassuring to see the rigour of the research behind the museum’s work. I had not realised that the museum had such a large and varied collection of ordinary people’s clothing, and it is impressive to see how thoroughly each costume in the Living Museum has been documented. It must be encouraging for the interpreters to know that their costumes are so historically accurate.
‘It is also fun to taste things, and I thought the shoemaker’s wife’s coffee was very good. Roasted over an open fire, and quite dark. That is how we like to make it at home, too.
‘It is exciting to see so many new things happening at the museum, and as patron of Den Gamle By, it feels entirely natural to take a personal interest,’ Queen Margrethe concludes.
This interview with Her Majesty is taken from Thomas Bloch Ravn’s book Den Gamle By – A Window Into History. The book is available in the Museum Shop.
In 2014, the centenary of its opening, Den Gamle By introduced five ambassadors for the first time in its history. All serve voluntarily, helping to raise awareness of the museum and its many different facets.
Frank Erichsen
'Den Gamle By can be proud of having brought together some of Denmark’s most skilled craftspeople. Through their daily work, they keep knowledge alive in their hands and minds, allowing the future to learn from the past.’
Annette Heick
‘… on my most recent visit, my family teased me mercilessly because the radio shop in the 1970s neighbourhood had an old stereo system just like the one in my office. Yes, perhaps I am a little old-fashioned, but you do not have to be to love Den Gamle By.’
Svend Åge Madsen
‘… so it was simply a matter of trying to capture the imaginings, the memories and the experiences from long ago that swirled through me. For Den Gamle By had always been there for me as a place of imagination and memory.’
Thera Hoeijmans
‘Nostalgia, memories and dreams, all brought together. That is what Den Gamle By means to me. An encounter with history. That is what I want my children to experience, learn and feel for themselves, with all their senses.’
Fatma Øktem
‘I am deeply moved when I hear about the plans to create a flat for Turkish men at Den Gamle By. It makes me feel that I belong, and that my roots are now also part of the history portrayed at the museum.’