Greenland

Population approximately 60,000, area 2,175,000 square kilometres, making Greenland one of the least densely populated countries on this planet. Depending on whether or not Australia is considered an island or a continent, Greenland is either the largest or second largest island in the world. Capital city is Godthåb (Inuit: Nuuk). Most inhabitants of Greenland are native Inuit although there is a sizable minority of Danes and mixed-race inhabitants. Danish and Eskimo languages are both spoken.

Most of Greenland (95%) is uninhabitable wasteland, away from the coastal areas a layer of ice up to 4,300 metres deep ensures that the wilderness is untouched by human hands. Over 70% of the island lies north of the Arctic circle and stretches so far north that the North Magnetic Pole currently lies in the permanent pack ice just off Greenland's northwest coast.

Politically the country is a self-governing province of Denmark having been first officially claimed by the Danes in 1721, and the island sends two members to the Danish Parliament. The earliest European settlers were vikings who probably stopped over there on their way to North America, and some of them set up a small settlement. However with very little to do other than catch fish (still the principle part of the Greenland economy) it is not surprising that even today there are fewer people in the whole country than in most individual towns or cities in Denmark.

Ice in Greenland:

The inland ice cap covers an area of 1.8 million square kilometres and represents 10% of the world's total fresh water. At its centre the ice cap is 8 km thick. Greenland's ice-free regions cover an area of 341,700 sq. km. Most of Greenland is surrounded by ice: the pack-ice from the polar regions floats along the East Coast, around Cape Farewell and up the west coast. Gradually it breaks up and melts, occasionally reaching as far north as Nuuk.

Thanks to the ice cap, the annual mean temperature, even in South Greenland, is below zero and summer temperatures are rarely higher than 10°C. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Greenland was -70°C at the northernmost tip of the ice cap. Across the outer edges of the ice there are frequent snowstorms and hurricanes: around a metre of snow falls across the ice-cap over the year, equivalent to 34-35 centimetres of water.

Adapted from National Geographic