Portal:Denmark/Selected article/4

The Royal Danish Navy is the sea-based branch of The Danish Defence force. The RDN is mainly responsible for the maritime defence and sovereignty of danish, greenlandic and faroese territorial waters. Other tasks includes surveillance, search and rescue, icebreaking, oil spill recovery and prevention as well as contributions to international tasks and forces.

During the period 1509-1814 when Denmark was in union with Norway, the Danish Navy was part of the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. Today the Danish navy is very modern and most of the large ships were commissioned in the post-Cold War era. The Danish navy has some relatively large ships in the fleet, despite the smallness of the country, primarily due to its strategic maritime location as the NATO member controlling access to the Baltic.

Danish Navy ships carry the prefix KDM which stands for Kongelige Danske Marine (English: Royal Danish Navy).