Frederik X of Denmark

Biography

Frederik X was born in Copenhagen in 1968, the elder son of Queen Margrethe II and Prince Henrik, and became crown prince when his mother acceded in 1972. After private schooling and studies in Denmark and France, he read political science at Aarhus University from 1989, spent a year at Harvard in 1992-1993, and took his master's degree in 1995, the first Danish royal to complete a university degree.

He worked briefly with Denmark's mission to the United Nations in New York and in Paris, and trained in all three branches of the armed forces, including the navy's frogman corps. A keen athlete, he has run marathons and completed an Ironman, and was a member of the International Olympic Committee.

Frederik met the Australian Mary Donaldson at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and they married in Copenhagen Cathedral on 14 May 2004; they have four children. When Margrethe II abdicated on 14 January 2024, the first voluntary abdication of a Danish monarch in centuries, he succeeded her as King of Denmark.