Assistens Cemetery

An Assistens Cemetery (Danish: assistenskirkegård) is a cemetery that functions as an expansion of another, older cemetery often associated with a city church.^[1]

By the end of the 17th century, Danish authorities considered the conditions for inner-city cemeteries increasingly unacceptable. Space was becoming limited, and it was also deemed unhygienic to conduct burials in the inner-city. The solution was to erect shared cemeteries in the outskirts of a town, named Assisting Cemetery, primarily in larger towns. The first of these in Nørrebro, Copenhagen, was founded by royal resolution on May 26, 1757, and inaugurated November 6, 1760.^{[citation needed]}

Many of the cemeteries originally founded on the outskirts of a town now find themselves once again surrounded by the town due to urban growth.

Assistens Kirkegård has become the name of a number of cemeteries in Denmark:

• Assistens Kirkegård (Birkerød)
• Assistens Kirkegård (Copenhagen, founded 1757, inaugurated 1760)
• Assistens Kirkegård (Fredericia)
• Assistens Kirkegård (Haderslev)
• Assistens Kirkegård (Køge)
• Assistens Kirkegård [da; no] (Lyngby)
• Assistens Kirkegård (Nyborg)
• Assistens Kirkegård [da; de; no; sv] (Odense, inaugurated 1811)
• Assistens Kirkegård (Skagen, inaugurated 1884)
• Assistens Kirkegård [da] (Svendborg)
• Assistens Ny Kirkegård (Nørresundby)

References

1. Kryger, Karin (2014-05-07). "lex.dk – Den Store Danske". Den Store Danske (in Danish). Retrieved 2024-02-10.