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.
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