RANDERS a town of Denmark, at the head of an amt in the province of North Jutland (Norrejylland), on the Gudenaa, about 8 miles above its junction with Randers Fjord, an inlet of the Cattegat. It is situated on the railway that runs south by Aarhuus to Fredericia, and has a branch line (1875) to Grenaa on the coast. Though a place of considerable antiquity—being mentioned in 1086 as the meeting-place of insurgents against Knud, the saint —Randers has few remains of old buildings and bears the stamp of a compact modern manufacturing town that owes its importance to its distilleries, dye-works, carriage-factories, salt-works, weaving-factories, tan-works, Ac. St Morten’s church dates from the 14th century, but has been frequently altered and enlarged down to 1869-70. Other buildings are the town-house (1778, restored 1858), the court-house (1860-62), the infirmary (1870), the almshouse (1868), the Jewish synagogue (1858), and the high school (1858; the institution founded by Christian III.). The population was 11,354 in 1870 and 13,457 in 1880.

Randers is best known in history as the scene of the assassination of Count Geerts by Niels Ebbeson in 1340. In the Middle Ages it had six churches and four monastic establishments—the oldest a Benedictine nunnery (1170). The Grey Friars’ building was turned into a castle (Dronningborg) after the Reformation; its church was burned down in 1698.