Greenland ( , meaning "Land of the Greenlanders"; ) is a member country of the Kingdom of Denmark located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
Welcome to CWAnswers
CWAnswers is your guide to the sprawling world wide web. The directory aims to provide a useful guide made by users. You can share your knowledge as well - simply sign up and edit your first entry. For questions just contact the team at support - at - cwanswers.com.
Weblinks for Greenland
Top 10 for Greenland
Things about Greenland you find nowhere else.
Select content modules
Greenland ( , meaning "Land of the Greenlanders"; ) is a member country of the Kingdom of Denmark located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
Though physiographically and ethnically an Arctic island country historically and geographically a part of the continent of North America, since the 18th century Greenland has been politically associated with Europe, specifically Denmark. In 1979, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland, with a relationship described by the Rigsfællesskabet, and in 2008 Greenland voted to become a separate country within the Kingdom of Denmark, effective June 2009. Greenland is, by area, the world's largest island that is not a continent in its own right,Joshua Calder's World Island Info as well as the least densely populated country in the world.The 2008 Revision Population Database However, since the 1950s, scientists have postulated that the ice cap covering the country may actually conceal three separate island land masses that have been bridged by glacier.
History
main: History of Greenland In prehistoric times Greenland was home to a number of Paleo-Eskimo cultures. From AD 986, it was colonised by Icelanders in two settlements on fjords near the southwesternmost tip of the island. The settlements, such as Brattahlid, thrived for centuries but disappeared sometime in the 1400s, at the time of one given date for the outbreak of the Little Ice Age.
Data from ice cores indicate that between AD 800 and 1300 the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland experienced a mild climate, with trees and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed. Fact: date=December 2008
These Icelandic settlements vanished during the 14th and 15th centuries, likely due to famine and increasing conflicts with the Inuit. The condition of human bones from this period indicates that the Norse population was malnourished, probably because of soil erosion resulting from the Norsemen's destruction of natural vegetation to allow for farming, turf-cutting, and wood-cutting, because of a decline in temperatures during the Little Ice Age, and because of armed conflicts with the Inuit. Jared Diamond suggests that cultural practices, such as rejecting fish as a source of food and relying solely on livestock ill-adapted to Greenland's (degrading) climate resulted in recurring famine which led to abandonment of the colony. However, isotope analysis of the bones of inhabitants shows that marine food sources supplied more and more of the diet of the Norse Greenlanders, making up between 50% and 80% of their diet by the 1300s. There is little evidence that they hunted seals or other sea mammals for food, as was common practice amongst their Inuit neighbours.
