Royal Danish Library

The Royal Library in Copenhagen (Det Kongelige Bibliotek) is the national library of Denmark and university library of University of Copenhagen. It is the largest library in the Nordic countries. It contains numerous historical treasures; all works that have been printed in Denmark since the 17th century are deposited there. Thanks to extensive donations in the past the library holds nearly all known Danish printed works back to the first Danish book, printed in 1482.

The library was founded 1648 by King Frederik III who seeded it with a comprehensive collection of European works. It was opened to the public in 1793. In 1989 it was merged with the prestigious University Library and in 2005 it was merged with the Danish National Library for Science and Medicine. The official name of the organization as of 1 January 2006 is The Royal Library, the National Library of Denmark and Copenhagen University Library. In 2008 the Danish Folklore Archive was merged with The Royal Library. Today it has four sites: one at Gothersgade, one at Amager, one at Nørre Alle and the main library at Slotsholmen, Copenhagen harbour, covering all subjects and special collections.

The old building of the Slotsholmen site was built in 1906 by Hans Jørgen Holm. The central hall is a copy of Charlemagne 's Palace chapel in the Aachen Cathedral. In 1999, a new building adjacent to the old one was opened at Slotsholmen, known as the Black Diamond.

The holdings include a 2000-item collection of books by and about Carl Linné, which was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 1997 in recognition of its historical significance. Other treasures include the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection; the manuscripts and correspondence of Hans Christian Andersen; the Søren Kierkegaard Archives (manuscripts and personal papers); the Dalby Book (a Latin Gospel on parchment), the Angers fragment (parts of Denmark's first national chronicle) and maps of the Polar Region, which were also inscribed on the Memory of the World Register in 1997 as the "Treasures from the Royal Library." Guamán Poma de Ayala 's El Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno, an autographed manuscript of 1,200 pages including 400 full-page drawings depicting the indigenous point of view on pre-conquest Andean life and Inca rule, the Spanish conquest in 1532, early Spanish colonial rule, and the systematic abuse of the rights of the indigenous population, is also among the holdings and was also inscribed on the Memory of the World Register in 2007.