Christiania, the Freetown

Before you is the gateway to Christiania. Step through it and the city changes in an instant: dirt paths, handmade houses, murals, cargo bikes. Before you go in, a word on respect: people live here, and residents ask visitors not to run, not to photograph people or homes without permission and, above all, to take no photos at all in the area of the former Pusher Street.

1The birth of a utopia

On 26 September 1971 the journalist Jacob Ludvigsen declared the ‘Freetown’ open in the old Bådsmandsstræde barracks, which the army had abandoned. Young people, artists and families arrived in search of housing and a different way of life: decisions by assembly, no cars and rules of their own.

What many thought would be short-lived survived decades of tension with the state. In 2011 the residents set up a foundation to buy the land, and in 2012 they made the first payment: since then they have been its legal owners.

Its flag is red with three yellow dots; it is often said that they are the dots of the three ‘i’s in Christiania.

2The end of Pusher Street

For years the neighbourhood’s best-known street was a cannabis market, illegal in Denmark, and violence grew around it. In April 2024 residents and the authorities agreed to close it, and the residents themselves dug up its cobblestones. The cannabis trade remains illegal.

For dinner, the canal side of Christianshavn is just a few minutes away.

3What to look out for

• The entrance arch and its yellow sign.
• The three-dot flag on walls and rooftops.
• The exit sign, with its ironic nod to the European Union.