Justice
The Bridge That United Copenhagen and Malmo Is Now Dividing Them
The Oresund, a favored passage between Sweden and Denmark for Europe’s refugees, has become a source of great tension.
When the Oresund Bridge (that’s Öresund in Swedish and Øresund in Danish) opened in 2000, it was taken as a harbinger of a bright, borderless future for Europe.
Linking Danish Copenhagen with the Swedish city of Malmo across five miles of the Oresund Strait, the bridge was an unquestionably bold feat of engineering, featuring a two-mile tunnel connecting to it via an artificial island. The bridge’s role in reshaping Scandinavia’s geography was more impressive still. It joined two countries previously linked only by sea and air and helped to bind Denmark’s first and Sweden’s third cities into a new international metro area.