Welcome to Sønderborg

Discover a city in a beautiful natural surrounding with a vibrant cultural life!

You will enjoy visiting Sønderborg, as you might be a visitor interested in nature, music, concerts at the Alsion concert hall, exploring the 1864 history at Dybbøl, etc. Sonderborg municipality has 76.000 citizens and 497 km2 land. Majority of the land is located on the island of Als, the remaining part on Continental Europe. Sønderborg is well connected including bridges, ferries, a highway, train-connection, the Sønderborg airport with 5 daily connecting flights to Copenhagen. Bikes can be rented; public transport is fuelled by biogas and we have plenty of e-charging stations for your electrical car.

Sønderborg aims at ZERO carbon transition by 2029. The ProjectZero vision is anchored in a public private partnership initiated in 2007. Sønderborg achieved the European Commission’s Energy Community Award in 2010, became part of the Clinton Climate Initiative in 2011 (today C40CPDP) and created in 2015 the EU H2020 SmartEnCity project in partnership with Vitoria-Gasteiz, Tartu, Lecce and Asenovgrad. Sønderborg and its enterprises have a strong city energy & climate cooperation with several cities including ones in China.

Sønderborg’s history goes back 850 years, where the city was part of the Danish/German Schleswig region, being part of the kingdom of Denmark. The big battle between Denmark, Prussia and Austria took place in Sønderborg in 1864. Many lives were lost and Sønderborg became German until 1920, where the “north Schleswig” region was reunited with Denmark. Today there is a strong cooperation in all aspects across the border.

Sønderborg has a long history, proudly integrated in our identity with long traditions and historical sites such as 4 beautiful castles. It is a city in natural surroundings with a strong, cultural heritage dating back to the 1200s. Sønderborg also features as many cultural experiences and events as there are days of the year, and languages from all over the world are spoken in the city’s many restaurants and cafés.

Sonderborg, easy to get to – easy to love

By car

Sonderborg is directly connected with the Danish and European highway network (E45) facilitating travel by car.
Car rental is available at all airports, including Sønderborg.

By train

There are direct connections to Sønderborg, see www.dsb.dk or www.rejseplanen.dk (german and english versions),
among others there is a direct train from the central station in Copenhagen. 

Trains from Germany run every 30 minutes via Hamburg, Kiel or Flensburg/Padborg, see www.bahn.de

By plane

From Copenhagen:  you can take a direct flight from Copenhagen/Kastrup (CPG) to Sonderborg (SGD)
– flight time only 35 minutes. Departures 5 times a day on work days, see Alsie Express.
From Billund Airport busses and trains run with an interval of 30-60 minutes from the airport to Sonderborg
via Vejle Station or Kolding. www.rejseplanen.dk
From Hamburg Airport you can move on by train to Flensburg and change to the bus to Sonderborg.

By bus – For long distance coaches, see www.flixbus.dk or www.flixbus.de
By sea – From Oslo, there are ferry services to Kiel/Germany, 1,5 hours’ drive away.