About Tønder

Tønder is the oldest market town in Denmark and used to be an operative port with considerable shipping industry and trade with lace among other things. However, the flat landscape did not protect the town against storm surges. From the 1550s to the 1980s many dikes were constructed which held back the water but these in turn also closed the access to the sea. 

Today, Tønder is an active commercial and industrial town with approximately 7,500 inhabitans. When you take a walk in the streets of Tønder, you will experience the many stunning buildings, which the inhabitants have preserved and carefully restored. You can still come across streetnames such as Skibbroen (the bridge of a ship) and Skibbrogade, which stem from the days when the town still had a shipping industry. The center og the town is dense and it is easy to reach and experience Torvet (the town square), the pedestrian street, Drøhse's house, the old pharmacy, the nice atmosphere at Vidåen, the old water town with the art museum as well as many other nice locations. 

The international park Wadden Sea, the world's largest tidal area, starts at the dikes. Twice a day enormous areas of the seabed dry out. The water brings nourishment into the Wadden Sea and creates a fertile enviroment for several different types of crayfish, worms and mussels, in such large numbers that every year 12 million migratory birds stoop at the Wadden Sea to eat and rest on their way from the breeding grounds in the North to the wintering grounds in the South. The tide, the wind and the storm surges change the landscape from year to year. The many animal species and the dynamic landscape has secured the area a place on UNESCO's World Heritage list.