Danish India

Danish India (Danish: Dansk Ostindien) was the name given to the colonies of Denmark (Denmark–Norway before 1814) in the Indian subcontinent, forming part of the Danish overseas colonies. Denmark–Norway held colonial possessions in India for more than 200 years, including the town of Tharangambadi in present-day Tamil Nadu state, Serampore in present-day West Bengal, and the Nicobar Islands, currently part of India's union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Danish and Norwegian presence in India was of little significance to the major European powers as they presented neither a military nor a mercantile threat. Dano-Norwegian ventures in India, as elsewhere, were typically undercapitalised and never able to dominate or monopolise trade routes in the same way that British, French, and Portuguese ventures could.

Despite these disadvantages, the Danish-Norway concerns managed to cling to their colonial holdings and, at times, to carve out a valuable niche in international trade by exploiting wars between larger countries and offering foreign trade under a neutral flag. For this reason their presence was tolerated for many years until the rise of British imperial power led to the sale of all Danish holdings in India to Britain during the nineteenth century.