(C) BoingBoing
This story was originally published by BoingBoing and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Greenland isn't green, and other fun facts [1]
['Gail Sherman']
Date: 2025-03-28
Many Americans are becoming interested in Greenland right now for no particular reason. Here is a selection of interesting facts about the island territory.
Let's get this out of the way first. Greenland is primarily white, not green. The Greenland ice sheet covers 80% of the island's landmass, although the sheet has been losing mass since 1996 due to climate change.
Greenland has the lowest population density in the world, with 56,000 people living on 836,330 square miles, with a third of them in the capital city of Nuuk.
Greenland is also almost certainly much smaller than you think it is. Africa is 14 times bigger than Greenland. On Big Block of Cheese Day, CJ Cregg and Josh Lyman were properly schooled about the inaccuracy of the popular Mercator map projection. Bonus fun fact: the "Blue Marble" photograph taken on the Apollo 17 mission is routinely flipped from its original orientation.
The two official languages are Greenlandic and Danish, and Kalaallit Nunaat and Grønland are the names in those languages. Erik the Red, exiled there from Iceland, may have named it Greenland, hoping the pleasant-sounding name would encourage people to settle there.
Greenland is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, and not currently for sale, although there is a movement to gain independence from Denmark.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://boingboing.net/2025/03/28/greenland-isnt-green-and-other-fun-facts.html
Published and (C) by BoingBoing
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/boingboing/
