The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid (Den lille havfrue) is a statue of a mermaid in Langelinie, Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. Based on the fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen, the small and unimposing statue is a Copenhagen icon and a major tourist attraction.

The statue was commissioned in 1909 by Carl Jacobsen, son of the founder of Carlsberg, who had been fascinated by a ballet about the fairytale in Copenhagen's Royal Theatre and asked the prima ballerina, Ellen Price, to model for the statue. The sculptor Edvard Eriksen created the bronze statue, which was unveiled on 23 August 1913.

The Copenhagen City Council decided to move the statue to Shanghai at the Danish Pavilion for the duration of the Expo 2010 (from May to October), the first time it had been moved from its perch since it was installed almost a century earlier. This statue has been damaged and defaced many times since the mid-1960s for various reasons, but has each time been restored. In 2006, Copenhagen officials announced that the statue may be moved farther out in the harbour, as to avoid further vandalism and to prevent tourists from climbing onto it.

The statue displayed in Copenhagen harbour has always been a copy; the sculptor's heirs keep the original at an undisclosed location. Undamaged copies of the statue are located in Solvang, California; Kimballton, Iowa; Piatra Neamţ, Romania and a half-sized copy in Calgary, Canada. The grave of Danish-American entertainer Victor Borge, includes a copy as well. A copy of the statue forms the Danish contribution to the International Peace Gardens in Salt Lake City. 

The statue is still under copyright, and several copies of the statue have provoked legal threats. Replicas of the statue can be purchased on the internet, authorized for use by the Eriksen family, who hold the copyright.

The Mermaid falls into a category of iconic statues that cities have come to regard as mascots, or as embodiments of the spirit of a place, among these are the Manneken Pis in Brussels. In several cases, cities have commissioned statues for the purpose.