Fanø is a island in the North Sea off the coast of southwestern Denmark, and is the very northernmost of the Danish Wadden Sea Islands. Fanø municipality is the municipality (Danish: kommune) that covers the island and its seat is the town of Nordby. Fanø is separated from the mainland by the Wadden Sea over a span of approximately five kilometres (3.1 miles), in the north at the closest point to the mainland 1.24 km. The island is 16 kilometres (9.9 miles) long and 3 kilometres (1.9 miles) wide, and it is located off the coast from the city of Esbjerg to which it is connected by ferry. The ferry ride takes 12 minutes. A variety of environments are to be found on Fanø. Not surprisingly, a very common one is sand. The island’s whole western shore is one long beach. The island’s northwestern corner is a vast sandbank called “Søren Jessens Sand”. Søren Jessen was an entrepreneur and captain from Hjerting, today the westernmost suburb of Esbjerg and the bank is named after him because his ship, the “Anne Catriane”, stranded here in 1712. The vegetation on Fanø is mainly heath and small pine trees, never growing tall because of the predominant strong westerly winds from the North Sea. read more…
