Every design for Flensburg

Flensburg is the German town where Danish is part of everyday life: it is the cultural and organisational centre of the Danish minority of Southern Schleswig, and a port with a long maritime memory. Across Germany the name rings a bell for other reasons too – the driving-licence points register kept here, Flensburger beer and the handball club SG Flensburg-Handewitt.

The town sits at the innermost tip of the Flensburg Firth, an inlet of the Baltic Sea, with the Danish border only a few kilometres from the centre; only Glücksburg and Westerland lie further north. Founded by Danish settlers who were soon joined by German merchants, Flensburg spent a long stretch under the Danish crown before it became Prussian, and that double heritage shows everywhere: in the old town gates of the Nordertor and the Kompagnietor, in the Flensburger Schifffahrtsmuseum by the historic harbour and in the collections of the Museumsberg Flensburg on the slope above.

If you learned the firth's moods as a child, cheered on the handball team or simply know which way the wind blows off the water, this is your corner of the north. You will find its long, narrow inlet on any map in a heartbeat.