• Monarch – Christian VIII^[1]
• Prime minister – Poul Christian Stemann

• Søren Kierkegaard publishes Philosophical Fragments.

Undated edit

January–March edit

• 12 January – Louis Hasselriis, sculptor (died 1912)
• 13 January – Peter Gottfred Ramm, military officer, landowner and company founder (died 1917)
• 1 February – Ernst Immanuel Cohen Brandes, economist, writer, and editor (died 1892)

April–June edit

• 11 April – Vilhelm Herman Oluf Madsen, politician (died 1917)
• 12 June
  • Klaus Berntsen, politician (died 1927)
  • Oscar Alexander Ræder, writer (died 1877)

July–September edit

• 20 September – Emilie West, educator (died 1907)

October–December edit

• 12 Octoeber – Carl Wivel, restaurateur (died 1922)
• 9 November – Andreas Riis Carstensen, painter (died 1906)
• 1 December – Alexandra of Denmark, queen-empress consort of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom (died 1925 in the United Kingdom)^[2]
• 4 December – Henrik Franz Alexander von Eggers, soldier and botanist (died 1903)
• 6 December – Rogert Møller, architect (died 1918)

• 7 March – Christian Horneman, miniature painter (born 1765)
• 15 March – Adam August Müller, painter (born 1811)
• 24 March – Bertel Thorvaldsen, sculptor (born 1770)
• 6 April – Christian Jacob Theophilus de Meza, physician (born 1756)

• 16 December – Johan Ernst Hartmann, organist and composer (born 1770)
• 24 December – Friedrich Bernhard Westphal, painter (born 1803)