The largest island in the world, about 2.166 million square kilometres
Roughly three times the area of New Guinea, the next largest
Geography · Records & extremes
Greenland
North America — an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark
The world's largest island, at about 2,166,000 square kilometres — three times the size of the next one, New Guinea. Roughly four-fifths of it is buried under an ice sheet up to three kilometres thick, and its 56,000-odd people almost all live along the ice-free coastal fringe. Islands larger than it are not islands but continents, which is exactly where the boundary is drawn.
How to spot them
- ▸The largest island on Earth, and the one the Mercator projection flatters most
- ▸Quiz clue: 'Nuuk', 'Kalaallit Nunaat', 'Ilulissat', 'Erik the Red', 'home rule 1979'
- ▸An autonomous territory of Denmark that left the EEC in 1985
- ▸Mostly covered by the northern hemisphere's only continental ice sheet
Key facts
Anything bigger than it counts as a continent, not an island
Australia, at about 7.7 million km², is the conventional cut-off
About 80% of it lies under an ice sheet up to three kilometres thick
The only continental ice sheet outside Antarctica; if it all melted, sea level would rise about 7 m
Its Norse name was a piece of estate-agent optimism by a Viking exile around 985 (c. 985)
Erik the Red, banished from Iceland, reportedly chose an attractive name to draw settlers
It left the European Economic Community in 1985, mainly over fishing rights (1985)
The only territory ever to leave the EEC before Brexit
Mercator's projection makes it look the size of Africa, which is about fourteen times larger
A standard illustration of how cylindrical projections inflate high latitudes
Its capital, on the south-west coast, has around 19,000 inhabitants
Nuuk, formerly Godthåb; the territory's own name for itself is Kalaallit Nunaat
Quick-fire facts
- •Area about 2,166,000 km², the largest island in the world
- •Population is around 56,000, over 90% of them Greenlandic Inuit, mostly on the west coast
- •It is an autonomous constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark, with home rule from 1979 and expanded self-government from 2009
- •The ice sheet averages about 1.5 km thick and reaches roughly 3 km; it holds about 7 m of potential sea-level rise
- •Gunnbjørn Fjeld, about 3,694 m, is the highest peak in the Arctic
- •Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO site, drains one of the world's fastest-moving glaciers
- •It left the EEC in 1985 after a referendum, chiefly over fishing
- •Common misconception: it looks as large as Africa only because of the Mercator projection, and it is a Danish autonomous territory, not an independent country
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- CIA World Factbook — Greenland
- Statistics Greenland — Greenland in Figures