GreenlandKalaallit Nunaat

People crossed from Arctic Canada into Greenland in several waves. The Saqqaq culture lived around Disko Bay from about 2500 BCE; the Dorset people followed. Around 1200 CE the Thule people arrived with dog sleds, skin boats and the toggling harpoon, and spread along the coasts. Today's Greenlanders are their descendants.

Thule life depended on seal, whale, walrus and fish, and on moving with the seasons between winter houses of stone and turf and summer tents. The kayak (qajaq) and the women's boat (umiaq) were Greenlandic technology later copied worldwide.

Sermermiut, beside the Ilulissat Icefjord, was inhabited for about 4,000 years; its layers of settlement are part of the UNESCO site.

Erik the Red, exiled from Iceland, led settlers to South Greenland around 985 and named the land to attract them. The Norse farmed sheep and cattle in the fjords near today's Narsarsuaq and Qaqortoq for nearly 500 years before the colonies disappeared in the 15th century; climate cooling, trade loss and isolation are the usual explanations.

In 1721 the Norwegian-Danish priest Hans Egede arrived looking for the Norse and found Inuit instead. He founded a mission, and Nuuk (Godthåb) followed in 1728. Denmark ran Greenland as a closed trading colony for two centuries, controlling who could visit.

After the Second World War, when the US built bases in Greenland, Denmark ended colonial status in 1953. Rapid modernisation, housing blocks and the relocation of small settlements followed, a period many Greenlanders remember critically.

Home rule came in 1979 and self-rule in 2009, when Greenlandic became the sole official language and Greenland gained control of its natural resources. Denmark still handles defence and foreign policy and pays an annual block grant, roughly a fifth of the economy. Greenland left the European Community in 1985 over fishing rights and is not in Schengen.

Most Greenlanders support independence in the long run, debated against the economic reality of the grant. In 2025–26 repeated US statements about acquiring Greenland drew a strong response from both Nuuk and Copenhagen; for visitors, daily life was unaffected, but it is a live topic best approached with curiosity rather than jokes.

Identity is Inuit and modern: Greenlandic rock and rap, national dress (with beaded collars and sealskin boots) worn on National Day, and a strong sense of ownership over the land.

Greenlandic cooking is hunter's food: suaasat soup of seal or whale, mattak (whale skin with blubber), dried fish, musk ox and reindeer, halibut, Arctic char and cold-water shrimp. Fishing supplies nearly all of Greenland's exports.

Hunting is regulated by quotas and remains central to identity and to diets in small settlements. International bans on seal products hurt Inuit hunters; Greenlandic sealskin now carries a certificate accepted in the EU, while US import rules remain stricter.

The kaffemik — an open house with coffee and cake for a birthday or first day at school — is the social ritual visitors are most likely to join.

About 80% of Greenland is covered by an ice sheet up to about 3 km thick; if it all melted, sea levels would rise by around 7 m. Its outlet glaciers, such as Sermeq Kujalleq behind Ilulissat, are among the fastest-moving in the world and feed the icebergs of Disko Bay.

Warming is faster in the Arctic than elsewhere. Glaciers have retreated visibly, sea ice forms later, and hunters in the north have lost sled seasons. Scientists work from Kangerlussuaq and stations on the ice cap.

For visitors this means real hazards — icebergs roll and calve without warning, sending waves onto shores — and a chance to see the processes that shape global sea levels.

For decades almost every visitor landed at Kangerlussuaq, a former US airbase, and changed to small planes. On 28 November 2024 Nuuk's new 2,200 m runway opened for jets, and Air Greenland moved its Copenhagen route to the capital. Icelandair, SAS and, in summer since 2025, United from Newark also fly to Nuuk — check current schedules.

Qaqortoq's airport in the south opened in 2026 and Ilulissat's new runway was expected later in 2026 (check), which shortens trips to the two main tourist regions.

Entry is Greenland's own: outside Schengen and the EU, visa-free for nationals who are visa-free for Schengen, but a Schengen visa is not valid. Plan buffer days for weather, carry a passport, and call 112 in an emergency.