Locat­ed on a strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant site com­mand­ing the Sund, the stretch of water between Den­mark and Swe­den, the Roy­al cas­tle of Kro­n­borg at Helsing&oslash,r (Elsi­nore) is of immense sym­bol­ic val­ue to the Dan­ish peo­ple and played a key role in the his­to­ry of north­ern Europe in the 16th-18th cen­turies. Work began on the con­struc­tion of this out­stand­ing Renais­sance cas­tle in 1574, and its defences were rein­forced accord­ing to the canons of the period‘s mil­i­tary archi­tec­ture in the late 17th cen­tu­ry. It has remained intact to the present day. It is world-renowned as Elsi­nore, the set­ting of Shakespeare‘s Ham­let.