Greenland Travel Guide
Greenland is the world’s largest island, located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is an autonomous territory within the Danish Realm. Greenland is an arctic country located between Europe and North America that’s famous for being more icy than it is green. … However, despite the large amounts of snow on the ground, Greenland is very dry and sees very little precipitation throughout the year. Why is Greenland not a country? Greenland is a dependency of Denmark, but has its own government which manages the island’s internal affairs. Most of Greenland is covered by a vast ice sheet. … Since Greenland is a possession of Denmark, it is politically linked to Europe, but is geographically part of North America. According to the World Bank, Greenland is definitively high-income and has been since 1989. The average income per resident is about $33,000.
Although Greenland experiences four distinct seasons, it is the winter and summer months which draw the most travellers to this fascinating country. The sun dictates all, with the pendulum swinging between the midnight sun in the summer and the polar night in the winter.
Places To Visit In Greenland:
Ilulissat Icefjord– is a fjord in western Greenland. Located 250 km north of the Arctic Circle, the Ilulissat Icefjord runs west 40 km from the Greenland ice sheet to Disko Bay just south of Ilulissat town. Ilulissat Icefjord was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 because of its natural beauty and the importance of the fast-moving Jakobshavn Glacier in developing the current scientific understanding of anthropogenic climate change.
Northeast Greenland National Park– is the world’s largest national park and the 9th largest protected area. Established in 1974 and expanded to its present size in 1988, it protects 972,000 km² of the interior and northeastern coast of Greenland and is bigger than all but 29 of the world’s 195 countries. It was the first national park to be created in the Kingdom of Denmark and remains Greenland’s only national park. It is the northernmost national park in the world. It is the second largest by area of any second level subdivision of any country in the world trailing only the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada.
Scoresby Sund– is a large fjord system of the Greenland Sea on the eastern coast of Greenland. It has a tree-like structure, with a main body approximately 110 km long that branches into a system of fjords covering an area of about 38,000 km². The longest of the fjords extends 340–350 km inland from the coastline. The depth is 400–600 m in the main basin, but depths increase to up to 1,450 m in some fjords. It is one of the largest and longest fjord systems in the world. On the northern side of the mouth of the Scoresby Sound stands Ittoqqortoormiit, the only permanent settlement in the region, with a population of 469. The name of the sound honours English explorer William Scoresby, who in 1822 mapped the fjord area in detail.
Nuuk Art Museum– is a national museum in Greenland, located in Nuuk, the capital. The museum contains a notable collection of paintings, watercolors, drawings, graphics, figures in soapstone, ivory, and wood, with many items collected by the businessman Svend Junge. Of particular note is a collection of over 150 paintings by Emanuel A. Petersen.
Qinngua Valley in South Greenland
Qinngua Valley– also called Qinnquadalen, Kanginsap Qinngua and Paradisdalen, in Greenland is about 15 kilometres from the nearest settlement of Tasiusaq, Kujalleq. The valley has the only natural forest in Greenland and is about 15 kilometres long, running roughly north to south and terminating at Tasersuag Lake. The lake drains into Tasermiut Fjord. Mountains rise as much as 1,500 metres on either side of the narrow valley. The valley is situated about 50 kilometres from the sea and protected from the cold winds coming off the interior glaciers of Greenland. In total, over 300 species of plants grow in the valley. The forest in Qinngua Valley is a thicket consisting mainly of downy birch and gray-leaf willow, growing up to 7–8 metres tall. Growing sometimes to tree height is the Greenland mountain ash, which is usually a shrub. Green alder is also found in the valley. It is possible that other forests of this type once existed in Greenland but were cleared by early settlers for firewood or building material. The valley was declared a protected natural area in 1930.
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