Råbjerg Mile
Interesting facts
- Since the state bought it in 1900, the dune has travelled roughly 1.75 km east, and it takes about forty years to pass over any given spot.
- At its present pace the dune is expected to bury the main road to Skagen within the next one to two centuries.
- The great sand drift of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is blamed on the Little Ice Age exposing more beach, combined with overgrazing and peat cutting.
- At their worst, drifting dunes in northern Jutland pushed up to seven kilometres inland, driving farmers away from the coast.
- Most Danish dunes were tamed with planted marram grass and conifers, but Råbjerg Mile was deliberately left loose as a monument to the sand drift.
- The writer Jeppe Aakjær was among those who protested against planting over the wild dune country, which helped save Råbjerg Mile.
- Where the wind scours the dune's trail down to groundwater, the sand stops moving and shallow, short-lived lakes form in its footprint.
- A protection order completed in 2008, after fourteen years of negotiation, set aside land east of the dune so it can keep wandering for about a century.
- In 2018 Råbjerg Mile and the Skagen area were chosen for Denmark's Nature Canon, a national list of the country's defining landscapes.
Why it is worth it
Råbjerg Mile is a hill of bare sand that refuses to stay put. Rising to about 40 metres and covering roughly two square kilometres at the northern tip of Jutland, it is the largest migrating dune in Northern Europe and the only big wandering dune left in Denmark. Some four million cubic metres of sand began gathering on the Skagerrak shore a little over three centuries ago, and the whole mass still creeps north-east with the prevailing wind, by as much as 18 metres in a year.
Walking onto it feels like stepping out of Scandinavia altogether: pale slopes rippled by the wind and a sharp crest above the heath. Behind the advancing front the dune leaves a damp, flattened trail of sand stretching back towards the Skagerrak, where heather and scrub slowly move in again. It is the clearest living picture of the sand drift that once swallowed farms and churches across this corner of Denmark — the nearby Sand-Covered Church, abandoned in the late eighteenth century, now shows only its tower above the ground.
The state bought the core of the dune in 1900, and more land around it came under protection after the nature conservation act of 1917. The surrounding heath and wetland matter for birds as well: golden plovers and wood sandpipers breed here, and the area is recognised as an important staging ground for migrating birds of prey. Around a quarter of a million people come each year, most of them to climb the crest.
Getting there
Råbjerg Mile lies between Frederikshavn and Skagen, about 24 km from Frederikshavn by road. The nearest airport is Aalborg Airport (AAL), about 70 km away. The dune is reached by car or bicycle from the road linking Frederikshavn and Skagen.
Plan your visit
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Nearby places
- The Sand-Covered Church 11.2 km · church
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Råbjerg Mile is a migrating coastal dune between Skagen and Frederikshavn, Denmark. It is the largest moving dune in Northern Europe with an area of around 2 km2 (0.77 sq mi) and a height of 40 m (130 ft) above sea level. It is also the only major stretch of migrating dunes in Denmark. The dune contains a total of 4 million m3 of sand. The wind moves it in a north-easterly direction up to 18 metres (59 ft) a year. The dune leaves a low, moist layer of sand behind it, trailing back westwards towards Skagerrak, where the Mile originally formed more than 300 years ago. Over 250,000 people visit the dune every year.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
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