Surface: 2.175.600 km²
Population: 55.600 inhabitants
Density of population: 1 inhabitant/40 km²
Capital: Nuuk
Official language: Greenland and Danish
Official currency: Danish crown
Imported products: car pieces, fuels, food
Exported products: fish, fish products, cryolite
State type: administrative self-governed division of Denmark

Geographical Characteristics :
Greenland is the biggest island in the world, seated in the interior of the north Polar Circle. Only 342.000 km² are next to the ice, along the coast. The ice stratum, thick of 2.000 m, covers 1,8 million km². Under the ice there are many high mountains and the coast is carved in fjords. The glaciers move from the mountains to the sea, where they broke into icebergs.

Greenland Climate :

Along the coasts, where there are the sittings, in the summer the temperatures are between 5 and 10 Celsius degrees, and in the winter between -10 - -30 Celsius degrees. the conditions in the interior are much worse. The warmest parts in south-west are also the moistest, with rainfall of 100 cm per year, but the interior and the north side are arid, here snows rarely in the winter.

Greenland Industry :
People in Greenland have Eskimo origins or Danish and most of them live in the south-west coast region. Fishing, for cod and shrimps, is the main activity, but they also haunt seals. They grow few sheep. In the past there was important the exploitation of lead and copper, but now the deposits are over. The deposits of cryolite near Ivigtut, on the south coast of the island are the most important source for people. It is exported for the utilization in the production of aluminium.

History :
In prehistory in Greenland lived the Paleo-Eskimo cultures, which disappeared around the year 200. In 982 when the Icelandic arrived they found the land uninhabited and settled here. They disappeared too after 450 years. In 1261 the country became part of the Kingdom of Norway, which entered into the union of Denmark-Norway in 1937. Many historians have said that Basque or English pirates or slave traders from the Barbary Coast had their contribution to the extinction of the Greenlandic communities. Norway and Denmark decided to break their arrangements about Greenland and went to the Permanent Court of International Justice in 1933. Norway lost and Greenland was a part of Denmark. During the World War II Greenland was on its own but in 1953 it became again an equal part of the Danish Kingdom.

Politics :
Greenland's Head of State is the Danish Monarch, Margrethe II. The Queen's government in Denmark has a representant in Greenland named High commissioner. The country has a 31 member elected parliament. The Prime Minister is the head of the government, and the one who is now a Prime Minister is named Hans Enoksen. Greenland is not part of the European Union.

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Tags: nuuk, greenland, danish, danish crown, island

Date Added: 14 November '06

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