Many attribute this to climate change caused by humans. An international team reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research Letters that the ice cap covering Greenland is losing approximately million Olympic size swimming pools worth of water every year.
Greenland was ruled by Denmark from the early 18th century until , when home rule began. In , Greenland approved the Self-Government Act in a referendum. The act means that Greenland can assume additional areas of responsibility.
However, foreign policy, defence policy, and security policy cannot be transferred to Greenland. Today, Greenland is a mixture of modernity and tradition. But it also preserves its small towns and traditional settlements, where the primary source of income still is seal hunting. Everyone has access to publicly-funded education, a public health service, and pensions. Denmark supports Greenland with a substantial annual block grant.
Fishing is still the most important driver of the Greenlandic economy. However, the fishing industry is not able to sustain as many jobs as it used to.
The Greenland Government is investigating ways to profit from the mineral resources of the island, which includes gold, natural gas, diamonds, lead and zinc. The idea is to attract foreign investment to this sector and to provide the services needed. Tourists enjoy looking at the drifting icebergs, humpback whales, polar bears, musk oxen, walruses, reindeer, and sea eagles.
The official language is Greenlandic, but large parts of the population speak Danish and English as well. Evidence suggests that the first people to settle in Greenland were the Paleo-Eskimos who came from the northern part of North America. Arriving at around BC, they were later followed by several other waves of migrants.
Through the centuries all the cultures established by these people died out. The Nordic connection to Greenland started in the Viking Age, when people from Scandinavia became aware of the existence of the Arctic island. Led by the legendary Viking, Erik the Red, a band of Norsemen explored and settled the southern part of Greenland in the late 10th century. Although initially attached to Norway, Greenland came under the influence of the Danish Crown when in , Norway and Denmark fell under one rule.
For reasons still debated today, the Norse settlements started to die out and by the year of they were completely gone. The Danish claim to sovereignty over Greenland did not disappear with the Norsemen in the 15 th century. Danish efforts to reestablish contact with the island intensified during the s, when religious motivation played a significant role. Many Danes moved to Greenland, and in the island was officially proclaimed a Danish colony. When Denmark was occupied by Germany during the Second World War, the ties between Greenland and Denmark were temporarily cut, and the Arctic island ended up playing a much more independent role than initially anticipated.
The United States quickly saw the strategic importance of the island as a stepping stone to get to Europe, and this importance did not diminish with the arrival of the Cold War. Accommodation at farms and in settlements. Explore the old inuit culture by paddling in a kayak built using the traditional, greenlandic methods. The total area of Greenland is 2. Almost 80 percent of the land mass is covered by an ice cap. With a population of 56, estimate , it is one of the least densely populated countries in the world.
Since most of Greenland is covered in ice, snow and glaciers , the Arctic nation is mostly white. It actually got its name from Erik The Red , an Icelandic murderer who was exiled to the island.
But according to scientists, Greenland was actually quite green more than 2. A new study reveals that ancient dirt was cryogenically frozen for millions of years underneath about 2 miles of ice. Greenland vs Iceland. Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark. Although Greenland is geographically a part of the North American continent, it has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for about a millennium.
Since , Denmark has held colonies in Greenland, but the country was made part of Denmark in In Denmark granted Home Rule to Greenland, and in expanded Self Rule was inaugurated, transferring yet more decision making power and more responsibilities to the Greenlandic government.
Under the new structure, gradually Greenland can assume more and more responsibilities from Denmark, when it is ready for it. According to historians, the first humans were thought to have arrived in Greenland around BC. The group of migrants apparently died out and were succeeded by several other groups who migrated from North America. At the beginning of the 10th century, Norsemen from Iceland settled the uninhabited southern part of Greenland, but they disappeared in the late 15th century.
The Inuit migrated here from Asia in the 13th century and their bloodline survived to this day. Most Inuit Greenlanders are their direct descendants, and continue to practise some of the centuries-old traditions. The Inuit Greenlanders identify strongly with Inuits in other parts of the world, like Canada and Alaska, and they actually share some similarities in their languages as well. The majority of the population in Greenland speaks both Greenlandic mainly Kalaallisut and Danish.
The two languages have been used in public affairs since the establishment of home rule in
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