[5][6][7][8] The 1976 protest song "I kan ikke slå os ihjel" ("You cannot kill us"), written by Tom Lunden of flower power rock group Bifrost, became the unofficial anthem of Christiania.

[9] Christiania is an intentional community and commune[10][11][12] of about 850 to 1,000 residents, covering 7.7 hectares (19 acres) in the borough of Christianshavn in the Danish capital city of Copenhagen on the island of Amager.

The ramparts and the borough of Christianshavn (then a separate city) were established in 1617 by King Christian IV by reclaiming the low beaches and islets between Copenhagen and Amager.

It is connected to central Christiania by a bridge across the main moat or can be reached by the path beginning at Christmas Møllers Plads.

The buildings are renamed Aircondition, Autogena, Fakirskolen ('the Fakir School') and Kosmiske Blomst ('Cosmic Flower') and have, although protected, been slightly altered from their historical state.

[16] After bitter negotiations that temporarily resulted in the area being sealed off to the public, in June 2011, the residents of Christiania agreed to collectively set up a fund to formally purchase the land.

[18] On 26 September 1971, Christiania was declared open by Jacob Ludvigsen, a well-known provo and journalist who published a magazine called Hovedbladet ('The main paper'), which was intended for and successfully distributed to mostly young people.

For 40 days and nights, residents patrolled the buildings where hard drugs were sold and sought to push the dealers out of the community while offering aid to the addicts.

One gang in particular, Bullshit Motorcycle Club, managed to fight off a chapter of the Hells Angels to establish sole control of the drugs market by 1984.

[24] On 14 May 2007, workers from the governmental Forest and Nature Agency, accompanied by police, entered Christiania to demolish leftovers of the small, abandoned building of Cigarkassen ('the cigar box').

[33][34][35] The perpetrator, a 25-year-old Danish citizen of Bosnian descent (he arrived in Denmark as a child with his family), was well known to the police for violence and involvement in cannabis sales.

[39] In a communal meeting consisting of Christiania residents, it was decided that the stalls in Pusher Street (by far the site of the largest cannabis sale in Denmark) should be removed, which happened the following day, 2 September 2016.

[43] When locals blocked the entrances to Pusher Street with concrete barriers and bars in August 2023, a resident said they were advocating not to buy the drugs in Christiania.

[47] Due to the worsening gang violence, residents were considering a proposition by the Danish government to buy the rest of the land with the proviso that they accommodate 15,000 square meters (3¾ acres) public housing development.

Usable raw cannabis flower is less commonly available, with vendors favouring block hash sold by the gram or infused in a cannabis-laced cigarette.

[49] Intermittent police raids,[50] carried out usually in the evening, have continued to target vendors, hampering efficient drug distribution and driving up prices.

Proponents thought that concentrating the hash trade at one place would limit its dispersion in society, and that it could prevent users from switching to 'harder drugs'.

[52] The open cannabis trade returned to Pusher Street after police raids in 2004, but the stalls were again torn down by Christiania's residents after the 2016 shooting.

[56] The most contentious part of this process has been to force the residents naturally opposed to the whole idea of ownership to buy the piece of land they have been occupying for more than 40 years.

[57] In his January 2013 book In the Name of the People, Ivo Mosley cited Christiania as one of the few examples of communities run on truly democratic lines that exist in the world.