Live cameras: Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is the largest island on Earth. Its area is more than two million square kilometers, which is about half that of the European Union.

Greenland is located far to the north, east of North America. It belongs to the Arctic and is located mainly north of the Arctic Circle. That's why it's very cold there, and most of the island is covered with snow and ice. This is called the cold temperate zone. The soil remains frozen all year round, so it is permafrost soil. Only in summer sometimes it is "warm" the temperature rises to zero degrees Celsius. However, apart from insects, Greenland also has mammals such as polar bears, deer and musk wasps. In the water off the coast there are not only many different fish, but also whales and seals.

The capital is called Nuuk and is located in the south of the island. There are about 15,000 people living there, and the whole of Greenland has about 55,000 inhabitants. Most of the inhabitants of Greenland belong to the Inuit, a group of Eskimos. Your ancestors are probably from Asia. The rest of the residents come from Denmark and other European countries. Two-thirds of the residents belong to the Lutheran Church.

The name Greenland, that is, the "green country", comes from the Vikings who came to the island around the year 1000. Before that, they had already settled neighboring Iceland. The Norwegian settlers settled in the south, in an area where the climate was quite pleasant at that time. After it got colder around 1400, the descendants of the Vikings died out at some point.

Around 1700, Denmark, which at that time also dominated Norway and Iceland, sent whalers to Greenland. Once all these Greenlandic places had a Danish name. Later they were renamed Greenlandic.