Danish Krone

The krone or kroner in plural form is the official currency used in Denmark. Its ISO 4217 code is DKK and its symbol is kr, or DKR unofficially. Its English name is “Danish crown” since the krone means crown in English. The krone was pegged to the German mark before it was pegged to euro.

The krone was introduced in 1873, replacing the Danish rigsdaler. It was introduced when Denmark joined the Scandinavian Monetary Union in 1873, which lasted only until the First World War. In the monetary union, the krone was placed on the gold standard with 2480 kroner equaling to 1 kg gold. The abandonment of the gold standard was followed by the dissolution of the monetary union in 1914.

The Danish krone is used also in Greenland and Faroe Islands but the Faroese krona is just a separate set of the Danish krone.

Denmark opted out of the Maastricht Treaty which resulted in Denmark, along with Norway and Sweden, keeping its krone currency. The rest of the European Union braced the euro currency.

The krone is subdivided to 100 øre. The 1, 2, 5 øre denominations were made of bronze, 10, 25 øre, 1, 2 kroner in silver, and 10, 20 kroner in gold. In 1917, gold coins were ceased in production while the silver coins were ceased in 1919. In 1918 to 1924, Bronze was replaced with Iron, the 10, 25 øre in cupro-nickel, and 1, 2 kroner, ½ kroner in aluminum-bronze. Zinc coins were introduced in 1941.

The 1, 2, 5, 10, 25 øre coins all ceased production in 2008, with the 25 øre being the last. The current coins in circulation are the 50 øre in tin-bronze, 1, 2, 5 kroner in cupronickel, and 10, 20 kroner made in aluminum bronze. Notes that are in current circulation have denomination of 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000 kroner. 10 krone notes were introduced in 1875 but were replaced by coins in 1979. On the same year was the introduction of 20 krone notes but was replaced by coins also. 5 krone notes were introduced in 1898 and were replaced by coins in 1960, 1 krone notes were circulated from 1914 to 1921.

In 1949, the exchange rate of the Danish krone to the US dollar was 1 USD = 6.91 kroner. In 1967, it had a rate of 1 USD = 7.5 kroner. Today, 1 USD equals to 5.4 DKK.

Danish Krone