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![]() > The Land of the Inuit > Since the Time of Eric the Red... > ...Until Today dijous, 9 de març de 2006
Greenland covers an enormous area. It is the largest non-continental island in the world, stretching over two million square kilometres. This arctic country is located to the north-east of the American continent, although it is an autonomous territory of a European state: Denmark.
Indeed, Greenland has its own autonomous government, just like the Faroe Isles– archipelago in the northern Atlantic Ocean which is also part of Denmark, which controls the foreign affairs of both of these territories. Most of Greenland (over 80% of it) is covered by a layer of ice that in some places is over three kilometres thick. However, recent studies have alerted us to the gradual melting of the island, which has been linked to climate change. The latest of these studies, conducted by the University of Kansas and NASA and recently published in the journal Science, concludes that the amount of ice in the glaciers of Greenland that pours into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean has doubled in just five years; that the mean temperature in the south-eastern part of the island has increased by three degrees centigrade over the last twenty years; and that the melting of the Arctic icecap is contributing to the increase in sea level by half a millimetre a year.
The Land of the Inuit![]()
+ The Inuit are the native people of the icy Arctic lands.
The population of Greenland is some fifty-six thousand inhabitants, concentrated in the coastal towns on the south of the island where the climatic conditions are not so extreme. The majority of Greenlanders are Inuit (misnamed Eskimos), the indigenous people of the Arctic lands, although there is also a Danish origin minority. The principal languages of Greenland are Kalaallisut, the Inuit language, and Danish. The capital of the country is Nuuk, on the south-west of the island.
Since the Time of Eric the Red...Populated by the Inuit since time immemorial, around 982 the Norwegian Viking Eric the Red arrived on the island of Greenland from Iceland. He established a colony which was only put under Norwegian control in 1261. The colonisation process restarted in 1721 (the colony had disappeared during the 15th century) and in 1814 with Norway's separation from Denmark, Greenland became a Danish colony.
...Until TodayGreenland held the status of a colony until 1953, when it became a Danish county. But recognition of the identity of Greenland did not come until 1979 when the island won self-government with the constitution of its own parliament. Today, Greenland nationalist feeling is alive and kicking as was proved in the results of the most recent parliamentary elections, held in November 2005.
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Investiga
> Perfil de Grenlàndia.
> Cronologia històrica d'aquest país insular.
I també...
- Dades bàsiques de l'illa més extensa.
- Mapa de Grenlàndia.
- Un mapa de tota la regió àrtica.
- La terra dels inuit.
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