The story of Freetown Christiania

On 26 September 1971, the journalist Jacob Ludvigsen declared this former army barracks open. In his magazine, Hovedbladet, he described exploring what he called the forbidden city of the military, and the article announced the birth of a free town. Freetown Christiania grew into a community of about 850 to 1,000 residents on 7.7 hectares of old barracks and city ramparts.

Those ramparts were laid out in 1617 by King Christian IV and are considered among the finest surviving 17th century defence works in the world. Look out for the gunpowder storehouses built in 1779–1780; residents renamed them with playful names such as the Fakir School and Cosmic Flower. A 1976 protest song, You Cannot Kill Us, became the community's unofficial anthem.

After long and bitter negotiations, the residents agreed in 2011 to set up a fund to buy the land, and with their first payment in July 2012 they became its legal owners. Today Christiania counts half a million visitors a year.