International Island Games Association

Member Profile

Greenland

Flag of Greenland

Games Attended

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LOCATION AND COMMUNICATION LINKS

Greenland is the largest island in the world, located in the northern Atlantic where the Arctic and Atlantic oceans meet. Greenland is a country without motorways or a railway system, and transport between towns is by domestic air flights or helicopter. Sometimes there are links by ships specially built to handle the ice-covered waters.

Travel to Greenland is almost exclusively by air with regular flights to and from Copenhagen.

GEOGRAPHY

The icecap covers an area of 1,833,900 square kilometres, which is about 85% of the total area of Greenland, stretching 2,500 kilometres north to south, and up to 1,000 kilometres east to west. The ice in the middle of the icecap is three kilometres thick. The coastline is 40,000 km long with many deep fjords.

The landscape of Greenland was formed by Ice Age glaciers, but several spots show signs of geological processes such as earthquakes, mountain chain formation, volcanic activity, etc., and consequently Greenland is an Eldorado for geologists.

Deposits of gold, zinc, lead and other minerals have been found, but there is no mining. There have also been on and off shore seismic explorations in search of oil.

The Atlantic and Arctic oceans have a constant cooling effect on the coastal areas, and with the cold coming off the inland icecap, this gives Greenland its arctic climate. Because of the sheer size of the country there are considerable variations in weather. The most stable conditions are found at the inland ends of Greenlands long fjords and in the Disko areas. The same goes for precipitation, which is most frequent along the coastline. Further inland the summers are usually dry, though this can also vary from year to year. The wind is a fairly constant factor, and it is very rarely dead calm. Since the air in Greenland is very dry, temperatures feel warmer; 15°C (about 59°F) actually feels quite warm.

POPULATION AND MAJOR CENTRES

Greenland has a population of over 55,000, of whom 45,000 were born in Greenland. The remainder are immigrants, mainly from Denmark. About 20 per cent of Greenland’s inhabitants live in Nuuk, the capital. Greenland is divided up into 17 counties, each consisting of a main town and several settlements. The area in between these few inhabited places is completely deserted. The Greenlanders are a mixture of Inuits (Eskimos) who migrated from North America 1,000 years ago, and Europeans who have lived in Greenland since 1721. In particular, after 1950, the number of Danes in Greenland has increased. Mixed marriages have become a common phenomenon. However, the great majority of Danes only stay for a short period of time in Greenland, and are replaced by others. The Greenlanders call their country Kalaallit Nunaat — the land of the Greenlanders. The population of Nuuk is 12,000, Sisimiut 5,000 and Illulissat 4,500.

HISTORY

The first humans are believed to have settled in Greenland about 4,500 years ago. They were hunters, who came from North America and crossed the ice off Greenland’s north-west coast. Due to the climatic changes the various peoples only survived for a certain period of time until they became extinct, and at times the whole country was completely deserted. About AD 1000 the Inuits came, and this hunting people have managed to survive. The Inuit culture is based on sea mammal hunting.

From 982, Norwegians and Icelanders settled in Greenland and supported themselves by agriculture in the south-western part of the country. The Norse population grew to about 4,000 but for unknown reasons they disappeared again from Greenland about 1450. Regular contact with Europe was not re-established until 1721 when the Norwegian pastor Hans Egede founded a mission at the Godthab Fjord, close to the capital.

GOVERNMENT

Today Greenland, like the Faroe Islands, is an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland is represented by two permanent members in the Folketing (the Danish parliament).

The Greenland Landsting (the Assembly) is the legislative authority, consisting of 31 members who are elected for four-year terms. The Landsting functions along the same principles as the parliaments of other Nordic countries.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Ajunngilatit? How are you?

The language of Greenland is the eastern branch of the Eskimo language which is spoken by Inuits in an area extending from south-west Alaska, along the arctic coast of Canada to Labrador and on the eastern tip of Siberia and, of course, in Greenland. Greenlandic seems so strange to European ears because of its polysynthetic nature, i.e. its words are formed by the addition of one or several parts of words onto a stem. One long Greenlandic word can often contain as much information as an entire European main clause including sub-clauses. Consequently, Danish is widely used in matters relating to teaching, administration and business. An increasing number of young people also understand English. The radio, press and TV use both Greenlandic and Danish. In recent years a good deal of fiction has been published in Greenlandic, whereas non-fiction is mostly in Danish.

The ancient Eskimo hunting culture has been replaced almost entirely by more efficient methods, but there are still remnants of this culture in the hunting areas in north and east Greenland. The dog sledge, for example, is still used for hunting and fishing. The traditional activity, sealing, is still the only economic activity in the hunting areas.

ECONOMY

Since 1950 Denmark has heavily subsidised Greenland each year. Furthermore, the home rule government receives revenue from the sale of fishing licences to the EU, as well as from duties on luxury goods. The home rule economy will no doubt be affected in the years to come by the fishing industry not yielding as much as expected. Shrimp fishing is the country’s predominant industry. Cod, salmon, haddock, halibut and other fish make up the remaining 20 per cent. So, in fact, the Greenland economy is based mainly on shrimp fishing. In order to avoid overfishing, the quotas cannot be increased. Thus many Greenlanders are unemployed while at the same time the country’s alien workers are an expensive and unsatisfactory solution. Greenland is trying to solve the problem by improving education and training facilities.

SPORT AND LEISURE ACTIVITIES

The sports organisation GIF (Grønlands Idræts-Forbund) has more than 14,000 members. Football is very popular, and in the north they play on the frozen sea in winter. Ski-ing, both alpine and nordic, are very popular, and also badminton, table tennis and volleyball have an increasing interest among the younger people. Handball is also played in all cities.

The Greenlandic Federations of Handball, volleyball, table-tennis, taekwon-do and badminton are all affiliated to their respective international federations.

Margit Motzfeldt


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