Greenland: The cold, hard facts

Greenland is the world’s largest island, covering 836,000 square miles - an area three times the size of Texas.

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A whopping 80% of it is covered in ice and glaciers, with virtually no trees.Humans began arriving in Greenland from 2500BC, with the Inuit settling there from the 13th Century.

The first European settlement was established by Erik the Red, a Viking, in the 10th Century. He named it Greenland hoping to attract other settlers, but by the 15th Century the Norse folk had left.

It is the world’s least densely populated country with a little over 56,000 inhabitants some 20,000 of whom live in the world’s most northerly capital, Nuuk. Nine out of 10 Greenlanders are Inuit.