Green­land facts

Approx 3700 m (12000 ft). Gunnbjørn Fjeld is Greenland's highest mountain. It is a nunatak, a rocky peak protruding through glacial ice. The mountain is named after Gunnbjorn Ulfsson, the Viking who was the first European to reach Greenland.

Denmark. Greenland s an autonomous constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark. In 1973, Greenland joined the European Economic Community with Denmark. However, in a referendum in 1982, a majority of the population voted for Greenland to withdraw from the EEC, which was effected in 1985.

In Greenland. Northeast Greenland National Park is the largest protected land area in the world. Established in 1974 and expanded to its present size in 1988, it protects 972,001 km2 and is bigger than all but twenty-nine countries in the world.

Eaters of raw meat. The word Eskimo is an offensive term that has been used historically to describe the Inuit throughout their homeland, Inuit Nunangat, in the arctic regions of Alaska, Greenland and Canada, as well as the Yupik of Alaska. The origin of the word Eskimo is a matter of some contention, but it is generally understood to be of Algonquian origin. It was long thought to mean “eaters of raw meat.”

In the Arctic Ocean. An ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km2 this is also known as continental glacier. The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the last glacial period at Last Glacial Maximum the Laurentide ice sheet covered much of North America, the Weichselian ice sheet covered northern Europe and the Patagonian Ice Sheet covered southern South America.

Denmark Strait. The Denmark Strait or Greenland Strait is an oceanic strait between Iceland (to its northwest) and Greenland (to its southeast). The Norwegian island of Jan Mayen lies northeast of the strait.

In the depths of the glacier. Blue ice occurs under the surface of a glacier as a result of repeated, slow thawing and freezing of water. This process speeds up when snow falls on the top of a glacier, the ice compresses, air bubbles are squeezed out and ice crystals enlarge, making the ice appear blue. In the Greenland environment this process takes from 100 up to 150 years.