Hanstholm is a small town and a former island, now elevated area in Thisted municipality of Region Nordjylland, located in the northern part of Denmark. Coordinates: . Population of the area is about 3,500 (2004), and the town has a population of 2,361 (1 January 2011).[1]
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The former island Hanstholm (short form of the original name Hansted Holm) has many placenames, including Hansted, Nørby, Gårddal, Ræhr, Hamborg, Bjerre, Febbersted, Krog, Nytorp and Vigsø. In the beginning of the 2nd millennium, churches were built in Vigsø, Ræhr and Hansted, forming three parishes.
In the end of the 20th century, Denmark's largest harbor was built in Hansted, and a 10-fold bigger harbor town was needed. A new town was planned, covering the places Hansted, Gårddal and Nørby, and the new town was officially named Hanstholm. This has led to quite some confusion, because the people from the towns Ræhr and Vigsø live on Hanstholm, the former island, they live in Hanstholm postal district, they live in Hanstholm municipality, but they don't live in Hanstholm town.
However, since all the parts of this new harbor town belongs to Hansted parish, and because Hansted has been the harbor town for so many centuries, many people refer to this town simply as Hansted instead of Hanstholm.
Besides Hanstholm and Hansted, one more name is related to this, Hanherred:
To the north is Vigsø Bay (‘’Vigsø Bugt’’) a part of Skagerrak. To the west is the North Sea.
The ferry MV Norröna of Smyril Line operates a weekly summer service to the Faroe Islands and Iceland. It is the only way to transport a car to the Faroe Islands and Iceland.
The northern part of Denmark is rising because of plate tectonics, and has lifted the island of Hanstholm out of the water, so that it is no longer an island, but an elevated area. You can still see two old farms: Bådsgård, which means boat farm, is located on the previous island Hanstholm; Færgegård is located in Sårup towards Hansted. Today you can simply drive between Sårup and Hansted.
There are many reasons to visit Hanstholm, and many people do so:
As Hansted grew from a couple of hundred people to several thousand people during the 20th century, some urban planning was applied. It seems to have been modeled in the same way as other growing Danish towns in the 1960s, which basically means that you can drive through the city without noticing the size of it.
Most shopping is concentrated in a shopping mall (Hanstholm Centret), and there are separate pedestrian and bicycle path covering most of the city.
Several excavations have shown, that Hanstholm area was inhabited by farmers 1000 B.C.
In the year 120 B.C., teutons inhabited the area, but left in a big exodus, together with the Cimbri, towards the south, where they encountered the Romans.
In the years 800 to 1050, Hanstholm and the area around it were islands, and nearby was the gathering point for the Vikings for their invasions of England and France.
According to the legend, the first Christian church in the Thy area was built in 1040 in Vestervig, where Christian priests coming from England entered Denmark. A big monastery was later built here and this was the beginning to the end of the Viking era.
The churches in Ræhr, Hansted and Vigsø were built in the 12th century i Roman style, and on Hansted church, one of the stones shows the picture of a trading vessel. This trading vessel has been used as model for the arms of the former Hanstholm municipality.
From approximately 1600 to approximately 1850, people from the area of Hanstholm traded a lot with Norway, which was a part of Denmark at that time, with special boats across Skagerrak. They exported food, mostly grain, and imported logs. There were no trees in the whole area, so wood was hard needed. The primary harbors for this trade were Vigsø and Klitmøller, the latter because they had water mills to produce flour.
For this trade, special ships were designed, named "sandskuder", meaning sand boats. They were able to sail directly onto the beach and were designed for transport of grain, flour and logs.
A lot of sand began to drift from the west coast towards east in the 14th century. In 1555, the sand drift had damaged a large area of Vigsø parish, and the local pastor suggested to abandon the parish and the church. However, people stayed in the area, and the parish kept active. The other parishes were hit hard, as well, and in 1690, there were dunes on the pastor's fields, more than 12 meters high.
Numerous attempts to stop the sand drift finally succeeded in the 19th century by planting trees and lyme grass. However, many low coastal areas between the former islands had already been covered with dunes. South of Hanstholm an area of ca 4000 hectars unique dune landscape has become a wildlife reservation, named Hansted Reservat.
In many places, where you have large areas with sand today, you find very good soil just beneath.
The lighthouse was initially built in 1842, but the construction was too weak, so it had to be torn down and rebuilt in 1843. It was the first lens-based lighthouse in Denmark. When it was electrified in 1889, it became the strongest lighthouse in Denmark, and still is today, even though the light intensity has been lowered today. In a period of its life, it was also the strongest lighthouse in the world. The lighthouse was automated in 1970, and in 1979 the buildings associated with the lighthouse were converted to a museum about the nature and history of the surrounding area.
From the top of the lighthouse, 65 meters above the ocean, you can see the entire area.
During the Second World War, the citizens of Hansted were removed and Europe's biggest fortress was built by the Germans in this area. Cannons were installed, that could shoot almost half the distance to Norway, in order to block allied entry into the Kattegat and thus the Baltic sea. Similar cannons were installed in Kristiansand in Norway. Thousands of bunkers were constructed in the area. After the war it was too dangerous to blow them away and the bunkers themselves were too solid to remove in other ways. Therefore, most bunkers are still remaining in the ground, and some can even be seen on beaches or in the water, where the ocean has moved the coastline (the coastline moved, but the bunkers did not). Only a few bunkers lying in the way for road constructions have later been blown up using a special method by filling them with water before the explosion. A museum in Hanstholm gives access to the central parts of this World War II fortress.
After the war, a lot of conifers were planted in order to provide shelter against the wind and in order to hide the German concrete constructions (ref. SkovOgNatur brochure).
Hanstholm is located on the northern edge of a salt dome, and this edge consists of very hard chalk, which is the reason that ice age erosion did not remove these formations. Because of the ways that the ocean streams go in this area preventing the ocean from freezing, and because of Hanstholms geographic location, Hanstholm is the perfect place to have an industrial harbor, open all year.
In 1917, the Danish Parliament decided by law to build a harbor in Hanstholm. However, this was delayed by numerous incidents, including the low grants in the 1930s, and even though the Germans had plans to use the harbor as part of their strategy, when they occupied Denmark in the second world war, they stopped all construction in June 1943, removed all machines and blew up the buildings on the beach.
After the Second World War, a political struggle started to get the harbor finished, but the other harbors in Denmark feared this. A new law saw the day of light on April 29, 1960. Finally, the harbor was completed and opened in 1967, and today it is the biggest harbor in Denmark.
From the harbor sailed shipping company Fjord Line ferries until autumn 2008 to Western Norway (Egersund, Haugesund and Bergen). Kristiansand sailed Fjord Line's fast ferry Fjord Cat (ex MasterCat and Mads Mols) until October 2009.
There have also previously been a ferry service to the Faroe Islands and Iceland from Hanstholm with the ferry Norröna owned by the Faroese shipping company Smyril Line. But after about 20 years where the ferry from the Faroe Islands and Iceland has regularly sailed to and from Hanstholm the shipping company Smyril Line a little unexpected, chose to stop all its operations from and to Hanstholm in the autumn of 2010 and instead move all its operations in Denmark to Hirtshals approximately 140 km north of Hanstholm.
With the loss of the ferry to the Faroe Islands and Iceland Hanstholm also lost its last ferry service from and to the city, but there are still people how is working hard to try to get new ferry routes to the city, and at the same time try to get some of the old ferry routes back to the port of Hanstholm.
In the framework of the Danish administrative reform Hanstholm municipality will merge with two other municipalities during the period 2006–2007. After that, Hanstholm municipality will cease to exist, and Hanstholm will be a part of the Thisted municipality. At the same time Viborg Amt will cease to exist and Hanstholm be a part of the new North Jutland Region.
The conifers, that were planted to hide German remains after World War II, are now slowly being replaced by broadleaf trees, which are more natural to area.
There are two museums in Hanstholm, but the most interesting one might be the one where you can go down into the bunkers from World War II, see how the soldiers lived, drive the ammunition train from ammunition depots to the cannons, and you can see the places of the huge cannons and get your own impression of how huge they were.
