Covering some 43,000 square kilometres (about 16,500 square miles), mainland Denmark is home to 5.9 million people spread across the Jutland peninsula north of Germany and 444 islands.

But factoring in its two autonomous territories -- the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic, and the Arctic island of Greenland and its more than two million square kilometres -- the Nordic nation is the largest country in the European Union and the twelfth largest in the world.

The Faroe Islands and Greenland, which also have local parliaments, have four seats in the 179-seat Danish parliament, the Folketing.

With polls predicting a tight race, these MPs could be decisive in forming a parliamentary majority.

In 1998, the election of a left-wing MP in the Faroe Islands, with a lead of only 176 votes, enabled Social Democrat Poul Nyrup Rasmussen to form a government.

As far-right parties have had an influence on politics since the 1990s, Denmark has adopted a hard line on immigration.

Even as a member of the centre-left Social Democratic party, current Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has been an advocate of "zero refugees" policies since she came to power in 2019.

The country was the first, and so far only, country in Europe to rescind residence permits of Syrian refugees from Damascus in 2020, on the grounds that the situation there was now sufficiently safe to return.

Like the UK, the government seeks to open centres abroad to relocate asylum seekers during their application process, with discussions ongoing with Rwanda.

At the outset of the 2015 migration crisis, Denmark adopted a number of measures to deter asylum seekers, including passing a law that allowed the confiscation of migrants' belongings to help finance their care.

In the small country, which prides itself on being a champion of green energy, climate is one of the main concerns of voters.

According to a recent poll, 36 percent of Danes believe the next government should make climate a priority, just behind healthcare and the economy.

Denmark likes to highlight that it sources 67 percent of its electricity from renewable energy (46.8 percent from wind power and 11.2 percent from biomass), but it is at the same time one of the world's largest pig-farming nations, a highly polluting industry.

The Social Democrats government has announced plans to introduce a carbon tax on agriculture, a measure supported by the majority of other parties.