You will find this mermaid at Wookey Hole near Wells, in the southwest of England. Wookey Hole is an actual hole in the ground – sort of in the shape you would expect if a meteor or large space ship crashed into the ground at a shallow angle. It is about 1000′ long and 200′ wide, and about 200′ deep at the deep end, and has an extensive system of limestone caves and caverns.

As a tourist attraction, Wookey hole has it all – the caves, the Witch of Wookey Hole, King Kong, life-size dinosaurs, hippos and lions, and much more – including this spectacularly gorgeous mermaid at Wookey Hole, in the company of a fairy. The sculptor created the mermaid in aluminum, with an extremely long tail, and spectacular detail, which you can see on this page dedicated to the Wookey Hole Mermaid.

Humans have been visiting and using Wookey Hole for at least 45,000 years, and the Romans knew about it during the Roman occupancy some 2000 years ago. It has more than 13,000′ of caves and at least 25 cave chambers found so far, and is the birthplace of cave diving in England.

The mermaid Miranda of Dartmouth was inspired by the 1948 film “Miranda“, in which British actress Glynis Johns played the role of the mermaid Miranda. It is located on a private residence by the Dart Estuary, near Dartmouth Castle on the west bank of the River Dart.

The life-size mermaid statue is known as Miranda, Mermaid of Dartmouth. She sits on a rocky outcrop near the river waterline, and is often half submerged during high tide. High tide is often more than 4 meters (13 feet) higher than low tide, so the currents also get strong here.

Elisabeth Hadley sculpted Miranda in bronze in 2005 as a privately commissioned art piece, and had her installed in 2006 in the current location on a beautiful property with tiered gardens leading down to the river. You can easily see Miranda from the river and from the turrets of Dartmouth Castle, which is only about 150 meters away.

I was fortunate in being able to contact the owner, who graciously provided more photos and information. While Miranda is a privately owned art piece, she is very visible to the public and well known in the area, and is a bit of a destination in her own right.

There are many more photos and additional information on this sculpture on the page dedicated to Miranda, Mermaid of Dartmouth.

If you visit Carlsberg Breweries in Copenhagen, you will encounter this half-size copy of Edvard Eriksen’s sculpture of The Little Mermaid.

What is a mermaid doing at Carlsberg Breweries? She is there because the original world-famous statue of The Little Mermaid was commissioned in 1909 by Carlsberg’s owner Carl Jacobsen. A ballet based on the story of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, and the ballerina portraying the mermaid, fascinated Jacobsen, and he asked the ballerina to model for a statue of the mermaid.

The ballerina declined modeling in the nude for the statue. So instead the sculptor enlisted his wife Eline Eriksen as the model for the sculpture. There is a persistent story that the ballerina Ellen Price modeled for the face of the sculpture, but there are reasons to doubt this. First, there are other sculptures by Eriksen, notably at the tomb of King Christian IX, whose faces look very similar to the face of the little mermaid sculpture, and these all look more like Eline’s face than Ellen’s face. Secondly, Edvard stated clearly to his family that his wife Eline modeled for the entire sculpture.

Carlsberg’s Little Mermaid sits in the center of a small fountain at the end of a little tree-lined walkway, and was placed there in 1937.

You will find more information and photos on this page dedicated to this mermaid.

I started writing about mermaid statues around the world about 10 years ago, creating pages and writing blogs about each of the sculptures I found. And yet somehow I never wrote a blog post specifically about the most famous of all the mermaid statues – the sculpture of The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Yet this sculpture is without a doubt the most well-known mermaid statue on Earth. Or anywhere for that matter. She is a top tourist attraction for people visiting Copenhagen, and indeed people just visiting Denmark. And of course she is a symbol of Hans Christian Andersen and his story of The Little Mermaid.

More than any other mermaid statue, she has been copied in countries around the world. Some of the copies are authorized and some are not. Many are exact copies in smaller size, and some are copies that are more “inspired by” this sculpture, and may well be skirting copyright issues.

There are copies in China, Romania, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Spain, The Virgin Islands, and at least 6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) copies in the United States.

And of course, her fame has translated into an enormous amount of art in terms of movies (including a Shirley Temple adaptation, a Russian feature film and of course Disney’s The Little Mermaid), an industry of mermaid dolls and figurines, and several TV shows.

She has been sitting on her rock in Copenhagen harbor since 1913, well over a century now, and has become an icon and inspiration for many other works of art.

You can learn much more about her history and see many more photos of her on the separate page for Denmark’s Little Mermaid.

The Big Mermaid was commissioned by Danish restaurateur Peter Bech and installed in 2006. Bech commissioned it from China, carved in granite. It was originally installed a few hundred feet from the famous statue of The Little Mermaid, but in 2018 it was moved to the city of Dragør, some 10 miles south.

The sculpture is 13′ tall and weighs about 14 tonnes, so it is certainly big. Bech designed it to be BIG so as to overcome frequent comments from tourists about “The Little Mermaid” being smaller than expected. While it is actually life-size, it can seem small on its rock in the large harbor. Bech also designed the mermaid to be well endowed, as another point of contrast.

I imagine that the close proximity to The Little Mermaid was a bit of a sore point to some, in a way detracting from and possibly cheapening the experience of visiting The Little Mermaid, which has stood the test of time for more than 100 years as an admired piece of art, as a beloved tourist attraction and almost as a mascot for Copenhagen and Denmark – and Hans Christian Andersen.

The new location at Dragør Fort is in the parking lot in front of the fort, which was built in 1910 and was sold into private ownership in 2002. It is now a venue for event and festivities, concerts and nature trips.

This mermaid in the town of Èze on the French Riviera is walking amongst us humans, carrying her mermaid skin and tail over her shoulder. 

Èze goes back in time about 4000 years, which makes sense considering the environmental beauty of this area and its views of the Mediterranean Sea.  Èze is one of the key tourist attractions on the French Riviera, and is famous for its beauty and charm, and its many shops, art galleries, hotels and restaurants.

The mermaid statue Ama d’Èze fits in perfectly.

Amaryllis created this and many other mermaid statues around the world. The message of this beautiful piece of art is this:

She left her underwater world to connect with mankind and alert us that we are damaging her environment.  She wants to explain that water is the cradle of life, the ultimate necessity to assure humanity’s own existence.  As she arrives on more and more shorelines, it is our belief that she will gain a louder voice and will help make the point that we must respect her home.

For more photos and information, see the Ama d’Èze page.

This Rhine River mermaid is dorsal-finned and unusual in many ways. She is stunningly austere and ascetic, seemingly adapted perfectly to the strong currents of the Rhine River where it flows through Rheinfelden.

She has the strong and prominent dorsal fin, webbed hands and almost human legs that end in large fins. Additionally there is a suggestion of gills on the side of her torso, and maybe also by her cheekbones.  

Roland Kistner created the sculpture in 2007, depicting the mermaid who has saved a drowning girl from the river currents. A cavern named the St. Anna Hole in the riverbed creates strong turbulence and unusual currents, which over the years have surprised many swimmers, at times with fatal results.

The sculpture sits next to the Old Rhine Bridge near the St. Anna Hole, on the border between Switzerland and Germany.

You can see more history and photos on the St. Anna Rhine River Mermaid page.

The city of Mainz in Germany has this fabulous sculpture if the “Fishwife” mermaid. It is tucked into a corner where the Gaustraße street curves and a small fountain was created.

Elsa Montag created the petite sculpture in about 1940. The city of Mainz purchased it in 1943 and then installed it in a small triangular plaza on Gaustrasse in 1950.  The detail and workmanship are outstanding, and the facial expression, the hair, the fish and tail are unique and beautifully crafted.

Locals know the fountain as Fischweiberbrunnen, which translates approximately as “The Fishwife Fountain” or “The Mermaid Fountain”.

The tight space confining the fountain and the sculpture makes it a challenging photography subject. Good photos of this sculpture were hard – or impossible – to find. I was lucky enough to find Svenya Thundiyil online and enlist her help in getting better images. I think she did a fabulous job – with the image here and with the additional photos on this main page for the Mainz Fischweiberbrunnen.

Please take a look and let me know what you think.