Assens

Assens stands on the western coast of Funen at an old ferry crossing to southern Jutland. A sheltered bay gave the settlement a harbour on the Little Belt, and it probably became a market town in the thirteenth century. The ferry gained particular importance in the sixteenth century, when cattle were exported in substantial numbers. Swedish wars damaged the town and reduced its trade in the seventeenth century, but Assens remained a principal crossing between Funen and Jutland. A new harbour was completed in 1822.