The Little Mermaid
At 1.25 metres tall, she is smaller than almost every visitor expects — and that gap between legend and reality is the whole experience.
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Commissioned in 1909 by Carl Jacobsen, heir to the Carlsberg fortune, after he saw a Royal Theatre ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 fairy tale. Despite the popular story, the face is not modelled on ballerina Ellen Price — after she declined to pose nude, sculptor Edvard Eriksen used his wife Eline for the entire figure. The bronze has been damaged and restored repeatedly since the mid-1960s.
What to look for
- The scale: only 1.25 metres tall and 175 kilograms, perched on a harbour rock at the Langelinie waterside
- The pose: a mermaid mid-transformation, caught between tail and legs, neither fully sea nor fully human
- Traces of repair from decades of vandalism — she has been defaced and restored many times since the 1960s
Walk the Langelinie promenade north along the waterside; the statue sits directly on a rock at the water's edge, no entrance fee.
The Little Mermaid is one of 35 sights worth the detour in Copenhagen, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Copenhagen pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Copenhagen
- Parken StadiumA 38,000-seat national football ground with a retractable roof and a three-Michelin-star restaurant on the eighth floor.
- AmalienborgFour matching palaces share one octagonal courtyard — and the Danish king actually lives in one.
- Tivoli GardensOpen since 1843 on a royal permit granted because, as the founder told the king, people busy having fun don't think about politics.
- Christiansborg PalaceThe only building on Earth where parliament, prime minister, and supreme court share one address — and the king still drops by.
- Rosenborg CastleA 1606 royal summerhouse that ended up storing the crown jewels and standing in as emergency palace twice.
- BørsenThe four dragon-tail spire that defined Copenhagen's skyline for four centuries came down in a fire on 16 April 2024.