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.
Greenland is a self-governed Danish territory. 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 ► Iceland and ► Svalbard are located.
Short name
Greenland
Official name
Greenland
Status
Self-governed ► Danish territory, Danish since 1814
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 since the eight century inhabited by the Inuit. In 981 Vikings explore and colonize the west coast of what is now Greenland. They form a more or less separate state, that disappears in 1410.
This map shows Scandinavian settlement in the eighth (dark red), ninth (red), tenth (orange) and eleventh (yellow) centuries. South-Western Greenland is coloured in orange.
Erik the Red (950–1000), in Old Norse Eiríkur rauði, founded the first Nordic settlement in Greenland. This map shows Eriks 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 colour shows the Dorset Culture, blue the Thule Culture, red Norse Culture, yellow Innu and orange Beothuk. The Norse settlements along the south-west 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. Denmark-Norway (the Kalmar Union nonetheless claimed the territory, and after several centuries of no contact between the Norse Greenlanders and the Scandinavian motherland it was feared that they had lapsed back into paganism, so a missionary expedition was sent out to reinstate Christianity in 1721. 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 as a colonial power. Colonial privileges were retained, such as trade monopoly. The colony of Greenland was established in 1775.
From 1917 on the whole of Greenland is under Danish control. Norway annexed the eastern part of Greenland in 1932 and names it Erik the Red's Land (shown on the map). In 1933 the International Court rules in favour of Denmark and Norway withdrew.
During World War II, from 1941-1945, the United States protected the colony. In 1953 Greenland became a constituent part of Denmark. Greenland is 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 map
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.