Atlas of Greenland

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Greenland

Kalaallit Nunaat Grønland Kalaallisut Kalaallit Nunaat Kalaallit Nunaat nunarsuarmi qeqertat annersaraat. Nunavittakkaani amerika avannarlermut ilaavoq, kisiannili europamut politikkikkut attaveqarnerulluni. Kalaallit Nunaat Savalimmiut assigalugit Danmarki kunngeqarfiannut atavoq naalagaaffeqatigiinnerup iluaniilluni. Dansk Grønland Grønland er Jordens største ø. Geografisk hører Grønland til det nordamerikanske kontinent, men geopolitisk til Europa. Kalaallit Nunaat, er ligesom Færøerne en del af det danske rige og indgår i det danske rigsfællesskab. English Greenland - Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory and a constituent part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Though geographically and ethnically an Arctic island nation associated with the continent of North America, located east of ► Canada, politically and historically Greenland is closely tied to Europe. To the east of Greenland are ► Iceland, ► Jan Mayen, and ► Svalbard. Short name Greenland Official name Greenland Status Autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark (Danish since 1814) Location North America Capital Nuuk Godthåb Population 56,255 inhabitants Area 2,166,086 km² Major language(s) Greenlandic (official) and Danish Major religion(s) Protestantism and traditional Inuit religions More information Greenland, Geography of Greenland, History of Greenland and Politics of Greenland More images Greenland - Greenland (Category).

general maps

Greenland in the Arctic region

Blank SVG map of Greenland, including the ice cap contour

Map of the ice sheet's thickness

Map of Greenland

Map of Greenland

Greenland in the Kingdom of Denmark

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  Administrative divisions of Greenland
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  Avannaata municipality
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  Qeqertalik municipality
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  Qeqqata municipality
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  Sermersooq municipality
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  Kujalleq municipality

History maps

This section holds a short summary of the history of the area of present-day Greenland, illustrated with maps, including historical maps of former countries and empires that included present-day Greenland.

The island of Greenland was inhabited by the Inuit since the eighth century. In 981 Vikings explored and colonized the west coast of what is now Greenland. They formed a more or less separate state that disappeared in 1410. This map shows Scandinavian settlement in the eighth (dark red), ninth (red), tenth (orange), and eleventh (yellow) centuries. Southwestern Greenland is colored in orange.

Erik the Red (950–1000), in Old Norse, Eiríkur rauði, founded the first Nordic settlement in Greenland. This map shows Erik's Greenland

Maps showing the different cultures in Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, and the Canadian arctic islands in the years 900, 1100, 1300, and 1500. The green color shows the Dorset culture, blue the Thule culture, red the Norse culture, yellow the Innu culture, and orange the Beothuk culture. The Norse settlements along the southwest coast eventually disappeared after about 450 years. The Inuit survived and developed a society to fit the increasingly forbidding climate.

This map shows Greenland as part of Denmark-Norway. After several centuries of no contact between the Norse Greenlanders and the Scandinavian motherland, it was feared that the inhabitants had lapsed back into paganism, so in 1721 a missionary expedition was sent out to reinstate Christianity. However, since none of the lost Norse Greenlanders were found, Denmark-Norway, instead, proceeded to baptize the local Inuit Greenlanders and develop trading colonies along the coast as part of its aspirations to be a colonial power. Colonial privileges were retained, such as a monopoly on trade. The colony of Greenland was established in 1775.

This map shows Denmark-Norway, including Greenland in 1780

From 1917 on, the whole of Greenland was under Danish control. Norway annexed the eastern part of Greenland (shown on the map) in 1932 and named it Erik the Red's Land. In 1933 the International Court of Justice ruled in favor of Denmark, and Norway withdrew.

During World War II, from 1941 to 1945, the United States protected the colony. In 1953 Greenland became a constituent part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland was granted autonomy in 1979.

Old maps

This section holds copies of original general maps more than 70 years old.

17th century map of Greenland

Satellite maps

Satellite image

Notes and references

General remarks: The WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons. The main page is therefore the portal to maps and cartography on Wikimedia. That page contains links to entries by country, continent and by topic as well as general notes and references. Every entry has an introduction section in English. If other languages are native and/or official in an entity, introductions in other languages are added in separate sections. The text of the introduction(s) is based on the content of the Wikipedia encyclopedia. For sources of the introduction see therefore the Wikipedia entries linked to. The same goes for the texts in the history sections. Historical maps are included in the continent, country and dependency entries. The status of various entities is disputed. See the content for the entities concerned. The maps of former countries that are more or less continued by a present-day country or had a territory included in only one or two countries are included in the atlas of the present-day country. For example the Ottoman Empire can be found in the Atlas of Turkey.