In the 16th century there was an influx of Dutch farmers, brought to the area on the initiative of the Danish king, Christian II. They settled mostly in the neighbouring village of Store Magleby, where they farmed and grew vegetables with great skill. The Dutch acquired jurisdiction over Dragør and also ran fishing and sailing operations from there. In the 18th and 19th centuries prosperous Dutch farmers owned a large proportion of Dragør’s sailing fleet, and Dragør’s development has thus historically featured strong influences from the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. Dragør’s position on Øresund, one of Europe’s most busily frequented searoutes, the connection between the Baltic and the oceans to the north, south and west, had always had strategic significance. The town grew to become a true port, with the majority of the population making a living from shipping. In the second half of the 18th century, Dragør was Denmark’s largest port after Copenhagen, calculated in shipping tonnage, and the town remained one of the most important sea-trading towns in the country during the whole of the 19th century. It was in this period that the town’s buildings and its harbour were constructed as they can be seen today. The dense section of the Old Town has kept its clear boundaries and much of the surrounding open flat landscape of coastal meadows, with unobstructed views in towards the town and out over Øresund.
The architecture Dragør’s pattern of street plan is unknown elsewhere. It may carry traces from the organisation of the medieval market, with divisions into plots of land. The street structure is regular, and the building pattern is dense and follows the regular layout of the streets. This regular, closeknit physical structure corresponds in a way to the close, disciplined community that was necessary on the sailing ships. Dragør’s sea captains, mates and ordinary seamen lived on land side by side in houses built in the same style, much as sailors lived on a ship. The town grew physically as a necessary framework for a working and social community, and its appearance from that day to this has a distinctly homogeneous character.
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Photo: Jan Engell, 2016