Denmark's national sport is split two ways: football is the most popular, and handball is the one Danes call their own. Neither is official in law. Football has the numbers, with more than 313,000 players in over 1,600 clubs and a national stadium, Parken, seating 38,190. Handball has the history and the trophies: its first written rules were drawn up in 1906 by Holger Nielsen, a teacher at Ordrup grammar school north of Copenhagen. The men's team won four world titles in a row from 2019 to 2025, Olympic gold in 2016 and 2024, and the 2026 European Championship in Herning. Below, the two sports are followed to the places where they are played, from school gyms to the Tour de France's Copenhagen start.
Ordrup, North of Copenhagen: Where Handball's First Rules Were Written
Ball games thrown by hand were played in many places before 1900; the modern game was codified at the end of the 19th century in Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden. What made Denmark central to the modern sport was a school north of the capital. Holger Nielsen (1866–1955), a gym teacher, army lieutenant and bronze medallist in sabre fencing at the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, taught at Ordrup grammar school. In 1906 he published the first written set of team handball rules, a decade before the German rules of 1917 from which the international game grew.
The sport moved indoors in Scandinavia during the middle of the 20th century, and Danish schools and sports halls have been its home ever since. The national team played its first official match on 20 August 1934, an 11-a-side outdoor game against Germany, and its first indoor international against Sweden on 8 March 1935. Its first medal came at the 1967 World Championship, a silver after beating the Soviet Union in the semi-final. Today the Danish Handball Federation counts more than 117,000 licensed players.
Jyske Bank Boxen, Herning: Home of the 2019 World Final
If one building stands for Danish handball, it is Jyske Bank Boxen in Herning, in central Jutland. Opened in October 2010 as part of the Messecenter Herning exhibition complex, it holds up to 15,000 people and has staged the 2014 European Championship, the 2019 and 2025 World Championships and the 2023 Women's World Championship. On 27 January 2019 it hosted the final of the first World Championship ever shared between two countries, Denmark and Germany. Denmark beat Norway 31–22 to win their first world title, and the tournament set a spectator record of 906,283.
The road to Herning was long. Denmark first hosted the World Championship in 1978 and finished fourth with a side coached by Leif Mikkelsen, nicknamed Bolsjedrengene because their striped shirts looked like the boiled sweets sold as Kongen af Danmark. Fourth places followed at the 1982 World Championship and the 1984 Olympics, and the first senior gold came only at the 2008 European Championship, repeated in 2012. The 2019 title was the first world crown.
That started an unmatched run. Denmark retained the title in Egypt in 2021, won again in 2023 to become the first men's team with three in a row, and in 2025, co-hosting with Croatia and Norway, opened the tournament in Herning and beat Croatia 32–26 in the final at Bærum, near Oslo, for a fourth. They had also won Olympic gold at Rio in 2016 and in Lille in 2024. In January 2026 Herning hosted the final of the European Championship, co-hosted with Norway and Sweden; Denmark beat Germany for their third European title, with Mathias Gidsel scoring a tournament-record 68 goals. That left the men holding the world, Olympic and European titles at the same time, a feat the women's team had first achieved in 1997.
Esbjerg, Viborg and Kolding: Handball's Club Towns in Jutland
Below the national team, handball lives in mid-sized towns, many of them in Jutland. Team Esbjerg, founded in 1991 as a partnership between two local clubs, plays in Blue Water Dokken, a hall for 2,996 spectators on the west coast, and won its first two Danish women's titles in 2016 and 2019. Viborg HK holds the record for women's league titles with 14, and KIF Kolding holds the men's record. Clubs such as these explain why a country of six million can field such strong national teams: the sport is played in sports halls and school gyms across the country.
The women's game built Denmark's reputation first. The women's national team is the only team in handball history, male or female, to win three consecutive Olympic golds, in Atlanta in 1996, Sydney in 2000 and Athens in 2004. In 1997 it became the first women's team to hold the world, Olympic and European titles at once. Since 2021 it has won medals at five championships in a row, including Olympic bronze in Paris in 2024.
Parken in Østerbro and Brøndby: Where Danish Football Plays
Football's governing body, the Dansk Boldspil-Union (DBU), was founded on 18 May 1889, the first national football association outside Great Britain and Ireland, and was a founding member of both FIFA and UEFA. Its headquarters are in Brøndby, in Copenhagen's western suburbs. The national team plays at Parken in the Østerbro district of Copenhagen, built between 1990 and 1992 on the site of the old national ground, Idrætsparken. The first match in the new stadium, on 9 September 1992, was a 2–1 friendly defeat to Germany. With a retractable roof and 38,190 seats, it is also home to F.C. Copenhagen, which bought it in 1998.
Parken was one of the twelve host stadiums of Euro 2020, staging three group matches and a round of 16 tie. On 12 June 2021, in Denmark's opening match there, Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest on the pitch and was revived with CPR; the team went on to reach the semi-final, losing to England after extra time. In the western suburb of Brøndbyvester stands Brøndby Stadium, inaugurated in 1966 and now holding 28,000, the second-largest ground in the country and home of Brøndby IF. The Superliga, founded in 1991, has 12 clubs; F.C. Copenhagen were champions in 2024–25 and have won the Danish Cup ten times, while Brøndby are the only winners of the short-lived League Cup. In the women's game, Brøndby and Fortuna Hjørring share the record of 12 titles in the women's top division.
Nya Ullevi, Gothenburg, 26 June 1992: The Final Played Across the Border
Denmark's greatest football result happened just over the Øresund, in Sweden. The team had not qualified for Euro 1992 and was admitted only ten days before the tournament after UEFA expelled Yugoslavia as the country broke apart. Most players had already been gathered for a friendly against the CIS, so the story of footballers called back from the beach is an exaggeration. Relying on goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel and the returning Brian Laudrup, Denmark finished second in a group with England, Sweden and France, beat the holders, the Netherlands, on penalties in the semi-final, and then beat world champions Germany 2–0 in the final at the Nya Ullevi in Gothenburg.
That win, together with the 1995 Confederations Cup, a quarter-final against Brazil at the 1998 World Cup and FIFA's third place in its ranking in May 1997, marked the peak of the team known since 1984 as "Danish Dynamite". Danish women also have an early claim to fame, having won the unofficial women's world cups of 1970 and 1971. Football remains the sport Danes play most, but it has nothing to match handball's run of world titles.
Copenhagen's Streets, July 2022: Cycling, Badminton and Other Favourites
Denmark's other sporting passions are best seen outdoors. On 1 July 2022 the Tour de France started in Denmark for the first time, in Copenhagen, with an opening time trial through the capital followed by two more stages in Denmark. Crowds lined the route, and Magnus Cort took every mountain point on Danish roads. Three weeks later Jonas Vingegaard (born 1996) won the race, the first Dane to do so since Bjarne Riis in 1996; he won again in 2023, and later added the 2025 Vuelta a España and the 2026 Giro d'Italia to become one of eight riders to win all three Grand Tours.
In badminton Danes beat Asia's best, and Denmark is Europe's strongest nation in the sport. Viktor Axelsen (born 1994) won Olympic men's singles gold in Tokyo and again in Paris in 2024, along with world titles in 2017 and 2022, and spent 183 weeks as world number one by August 2024. Ice hockey shares the handball arena in Herning: Jyske Bank Boxen co-hosted the 2018 IIHF World Championship with Copenhagen's Royal Arena and was a venue for the 2025 edition, and the domestic Superisligaen has nine professional teams. Sailing, swimming and golf all have strong followings too, and sport is encouraged in schools, with local clubs in every city and most towns.
So which is the national sport? Count players and fans, and football wins. Count world titles, invented rules and sold-out halls in Herning, and handball has the stronger claim. For more on the country around these venues, see the largest cities in Denmark, read about the people behind the results among the famous people from Denmark, or turn to the 1992 semi-final opponents, who weigh football against skating, in the national sport of the Netherlands.