It is relevant to distinguish between two types of data portals, namely:

  • Metadata portals
  • Data warehouse portals. In a Metadata portal, you only find the description of data (i.e. the metadata) and a link to where the data is located (the data warehouse where the data is stored). In contrast, the data warehouse portals are primarily concerned with storing and giving access to the data but also contains meta data for search and description purposes.

In Denmark, there are two main metadata services

Data warehouse portals are a bit more complicated. In principle, there is one national public data warehouse portal, “Datafordeleren” (https://datafordeler.dk/), which contains access to all the so-called “Grunddata” (Basic public data). Datafordeleren is primarily geared towards the professional user who accesses data regularly. For the more infrequent users, much of the geospatial data found on “Datafordeleren” can, with less effort, be accessed through the “Dataforsyning” portal (https://dataforsyningen.dk/). In order to use “Dataforsyning,” you need to create a user on the portal, which is rather straightforward if you understand Danish. For Non-Danish speakers, I have created a guide for “Creating a user on Dataforsyningen”. In addition to the portals that give access to “the Basic public data”, there are several sector/ministerial special sites.