This is a list of Danish colonies and protectorates of the former Danish colonial empire.
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Fishing and whaling were very important to the European settlements.
From 1380/1397/1721 to 1814 Greenland was part of Norway, which was united with Denmark under a common king.
After the Viking-era settlements of the Norsemen had perished because of worsening climate in the 15th century, Greenland was re-discovered in the 18th century. In 1721 Hans Egede began a Protestant mission. Economically Greenland was an important base for Denmark with respect to fishing and whaling. Under the 1814 Treaty of Kiel, Denmark retained Norway's colonial possessions, including Greenland. In 1921 Greenland declared its independence, which was confirmed by the international court in Den Haag.
The colonization of Greenland accelerated in 1945 because at that point in time Greenland became a geostrategic base due to the US-Air base Thule and also because it had the technical possibilities of aircraft and icebreakers at its disposition, which gave it a supply situation similar to European conditions.
The inhabitants of Greenland are citizens of Denmark, and so are the inhabitants of Faeroe.
The Danish West Indies in the Caribbean were very important to Schleswig-Holsteinish farmers. They had black slaves and primarily cultivated sugar cane which was refined in Flensburg and Copenhagen. Today's traces of these activities in the Danish West Indies are the well preserved buildings of that time and intense Danish tourism.
The Danish colonies in Asia were called Danish East India [1], because they were all situated in the historic India. They included:
The most important economic aspect was spice trade and access to the east Asian area, including Imperial China situated farther to the east. At first, Denmark kept no colonies in China itself, only trade bases attended to by the Danish East India Company.
Denmark established several short term bases and fortresses at the Gold Coast in West Africa, today the coast of Ghana, in the 17th and 18th centuries.
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