Den Store Danske Encyklopædi

Den Store Danske Encyklopædi (The Great Danish Encyclopedia) is the most comprehensive contemporary Danish language encyclopedia. The 20 volumes of the encyclopedia were published successively between 1994 and 2001; a one-volume supplement was published in 2002 (Deadline:1 September 2002;656 pages) and two index volumes in 2003. Another one-volume supplement ("Supplement 2") was published in 2006 (Deadline:1 September 2006;632 pages). Supplement 2 also contained information on the new Structural Reform of the public sector, mostly in effect from 1 January 2007, i.e. maps of the new municipalities and regions. The work comprises 115,000 articles, ranging in size from single-line cross references to the 130-page entry Danmark (Denmark). The articles were written by a staff of about 4,000 academic experts led by editor-in-chief Jørn Lund. Articles longer than a few dozen lines are signed by their authors. Many articles are illustrated.

The encyclopedia was published by Danmarks Nationalleksikon A/S (Denmark's National Encyclopedia), a subsidiary of Denmark's grand old publishing house Gyldendal that was set up for the purpose. The project was inspired by the almost contemporary Swedish Nationalencyklopedin; it received financial support from the Augustinus Foundation and was backed by a governmental inflation guarantee on pre-paid subscriptions. Eventually about 35,000 copies were sold.

The text of the paper encyclopedia was also published, but without illustrations, on CD-ROMs for Microsoft Windows in 2004 and for macOS in 2005. In January 2006, it was announced that a full online edition of the encyclopedia was expected to be available in later 2006 on a subscription basis, with the help of a renewed grant from the Augustinus Foundation. In March 2008, the publishing house announced that it failed to get sufficient numbers of subscribers and declared the project a failure.

The CD ROM version of the encyclopedia is likely not to work without an update on newer versions of Windows XP/Vista, due to a security fix from Microsoft.

The original articles from Den Store Danske Encyclopædi can be used freely as provided it is not distributed or used commercially.

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