Flowery, an artist and pop icon - Denmark's Queen Margrethe

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The Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II celebrates her 75th birthday at Christian VII's Palace, Amalienborg. /Jens Dresling/Polfoto/AP

Denmark's Queen Margrethe II was 31 when she ascended the Danish throne in 1972, just hours after her father, King Frederik IX died.

During her 52-year reign Queen Margrethe has become a uniting figure for Danes, inspiring broad support for the monarchy at a time when royals across Europe sometimes struggle to stay relevant in modern society.

The queen, 83, who became the longest-serving monarch in Europe after Britain's Queen Elizabeth died in 2022, is passing the throne to her son, Frederik.

The Queen's abdication is the first time a Danish monarch has voluntarily stepped down in almost 900 years.

Here are some facts about Queen Margrethe.

Denmark's then-Princess Margrethe is proclaimed Queen by then-Prime Minister Jens Otto Krag on the balcony of Christiansborg Castle, in Copenhagen. /Ritzau Scanpix/Aage Soerensen/Reuters

The first female Danish monarch in over 600 years

Margrethe was born in 1940 to King Frederik IX and Swedish-born Queen Ingrid. She was the eldest of three sisters and became the king's heir in 1953 after a constitutional amendment allowing women to inherit the throne.

She was crowned queen aged 31, Denmark's first female monarch since the 1380s.

"There was so much fuss about me being a woman. It wasn't very funny, quite frankly," she said in an interview in 2019.

She is a keen artist

The queen began drawing and painting from an early age, and has since worked on church textiles, graphics, book illustrations, decoupages, scenography and embroidery, many of which have been exhibited in Denmark and abroad.

She made sketches for a Danish reissue of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in 1977, and was recently part of the creative team behind the ballet The Snow Queen at Copenhagen's Tivoli, based on the fairytale by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen.

Queen Margrethe II of Denmark looks at portraits of German Holocaust survivor Margot Friedlander by artist Stephanie v. Dallwitz at the Literaturhaus in Berlin. /Tobias Schwarz/AP

She often designed and created her own clothes

The queen is often pictured in bright, flowery outfits, many of which she designed herself - including a long raincoat made out of a waxed tablecloth, with a yellow collar and a matching hat. This appeals in a design-conscious nation that also has one of the oldest monarchies in the world.

"She isn't smart and modern in terms of being trendy; she has her own style with the red raincoats and floral raincoats, and I think that's extremely cool," said Lone Percy-Smith, 60, a professor.

A trend bucker

Bucking modern trends, Margrethe was a long-time smoker and was often portrayed with a cigarette in hand in Danish pop culture.

She had to quit ahead of back surgery in February 2023 - an operation that she said made her think about the need to pass the baton to the next generation.