Holmen naval base

Naval Station Holmen
Holmen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Nyholm's Central Guard in the foreground with the salutory cannons of the Sixtus Battery in the background
Type	Military base
Site information
Controlled by	Royal Danish Navy
Open to the public	yes
Site history
In use	late 17th century–Present
Battles/wars	Battle of Copenhagen

Naval Station Holmen (Danish: Flådestation Holmen) is one of several naval stations of the Royal Danish Navy, supplementing the two Danish naval bases in Frederikshavn and Korsør.

Founded in the late 17th century it is also a visitor attraction with many historical buildings that has played a vital role in the history of Denmark as well as Copenhagen.

The naval base used to occupy the entire area of Holmen, which was in fact created by a series of landfills to house it, but is now confined to its northernmost island of Nyholm.

Holmen was for many years the base of command for the Danish Naval Flag and has through the times been called Nyholm (which is the name of one of the islands), the Navy’s Base and Naval Station or Naval Base, Copenhagen. It was never actually named Naval Station Holmen (Flådestation Holmen), even though many people not in the Navy have used this name. For over 300 years, Holmen was Denmark’s largest employer. Today the Navy only has a single institution left on Holmen. Since the 1990s, the area has been opened to the public.

Erik Menved was the first Danish king to establish a naval port in Copenhagen. Later the fleet, under the command of Valdemar Atterdag was moved to Vordingborg, but Erik of Pommern moved the fleet back to Copenhagen and King Hans built a shipyard in Copenhagen.

Christian IV of Denmark built a “war port” on Slotsholmen, but the harbor’s basin has been filled since and today is the site of the Royal Library. The buildings around the harbor housed supplies for the Navy. As ships started to grow in size, the war port became too small, and the fleet moved to Bremerholm.