Why Greenland Is So Incredibly Empty... It's Not Just The Ice 

2/3 of the landmass is above the Arctic Circle, and the southernmost tip is on roughly the same latitude line as Anchorage Alaska. Yikes!

As a Canadian, I've been obsessed with Greenland for a long time. It's so close to us, almost as close as the USA yet to get there you currently have to fly to Copenhagen or Reykjavik then backtrack to Kangerlussuaq or Narsarsuaq (both International airports were former US Air Force bases from WWII) before continuing onto Nuuk since its runway is still too short for anything but DeHavilland Dash 8-Q400 flights (ironically a Canadian made aircraft) but the runway expansion/new international terminal project is finally underway so that will change in the coming decades making it much easier to visit from North America... There have been some Iqaluit-Nuuk flights in the past they've never been commercially successful enough to be sustainable... Probably because of the lack of cargo capacity to bring in cheaper goods from Canada to supplement European imports...

I've flown over it on the way to Europe and the ice goes on forever, beautiful in its grandeur. Like you, I figured "Greenland" was the name applied by Norse real estate agents to get people over there, thinking they'd be hoeing verdant gardens instead of hunting seals on ice floes. Real estate agents have a euphemism for every sort of dilapidated property they're peddling.

One of my favorite fun facts about Greenland is that the island has one single forest! It’s located entirely within one single canyon, which has to be one of if not the loneliest forest on Earth

FYI Yes, about half the population would like secession from Denmark, but the Greenland homerule acknowledges dependency of 500 million $ annual subsidies ~ 10k per capita from Denmark so it's not immediately on the table. Around 1 in 4 have mixed Inuit/European ancestry - It's not 100% native Inuit as you made it sound. Equally around 1 in 4 currently lives in Denmark. Canada and Greenland actually have a common land border splitting the tiny uninhabited Hans Island in two. Interesting story behind worth checking out.

Around 800 A.D. there began a four-century period of high global temperatures, known as, The Climatic Optimum. It was not a global disaster back then as today. Many parts of the world previously uninhabitable due to harsh and cold weather, became moderate and open for agriculture. In England, grapes were being grown in the south. In Greenland, much land land in the southern tip around the coastlines became suitable for farming and animal grazing. The weather had greatly moderated in southern Greenland to like that of today's southern Canada where it is warm enough to plant crops once a year while the winter, cold and snowy, was not Arctic freezing as before. The once stormy seas around Greenland calmed enough to make extensive fishing safer and feasible. It was a good time for the Norse settlers. As the four hundred years came to an end, the world began to experience the exact reverse, unusually cold, wet, and prolonged winters. This was a ecological disaster for Europe which led to crop failures, famines, and plagues like the Black Death. In Greenland, the land and seas over the course of just ten to fifteen years reverted to its originate state. The Norse descendents could no longer farm the cold, harsh windswept land nor pasture animals. The surrounding seas once again became frigid and stormy, too unsafe for fishing or whaling. According to history, the Norse settlers began to due out from starvation and famine and malnutrition. Those who did not die eventually sailed to the Scandinavian homelands of their ancestors.

I'm from Greenland brother, very lucky my parents met at thule so I'm the only greenlandic american on earth. Best video about greenland👍

20 percent is an area the size of California give or take, of course much of that is rugged rocky land with no chance for agriculture. Also, when Eric the Red discovered Greenland it was during the medieval warm period. When the climate became too harsh for their way of life with sheep farming, they bailed.

My grandchildren learn more on this channel than they do on any other channels

Next you can do Baffin Island, Elsesmere Island, northeastern Siberia, then the Moon and Mars.

The period of time when the Vikings and Erik were exploring the north Atlantic from around 700 to 1100CE was the Medieval Warm Period. Ice retreated and cropping and agriculture was extended over high latitude areas. Greenland was very green with large expanses of arable land. But as we all know The Little Ice Age AKA the Dark Ages followed for 500 years until the mid 19th century and it has been warming ever since in a natural cycle. Mostly caused by volcanic eruptions and associated ash and aerosol sulphite. Crop failures for decades, the plague, the French Revolution, the Polynesian diaspora. All caused by changes in the climate due to nature taking its course over Millennia. The only constant is change!

Great video. Thanks always been fascinated with this place. Thanks for all the great info

Happy Holidays Geoff. I really enjoyed ur geography videos 😃 Thanks 👍 😃 🧡

I saw -75 degrees farenheit on my computer in Greenland...

Merry Christmas. Love this channel

If you examine Canadian geography you'll find nearly everyone lives in the very south. Anyplace that is uninhabited is so for very good reasons...not because of lack of will or some real-estate marketing failures.

i've heard that 'Iceland' is an anglicization of the Icelandic word for 'island'; and given that Iceland is an island, i'm tempted to believe that

Good quality, interesting videos, youve earned a new sub

As a geography FAN. I LOVE Geography By Geoff. Best geography channel. Always answering interesting questions

Hi from Montreal! I love winter, many perks including "Quiet!", I majored in Sylviculture and re-wild the place but left my trade cuz they refuse to listen! Happy New Year!

Erik the Red was a Norwegian explorer Who moved to Iceland. (He had a son there, known as Leiv Eriksson). Erik the red disponeres Hreenland and sounded the first European settlement there. Greenland and Iceland was a part of Norway when Denmark and Norway went into a union in the middle ages. When this union ended in 1814, Denmark kept the Norwegian colonies Greenland and Iceland.

Very interesting 🧐 Thanks!

Love this timing for some reason

There was a Viking settlement there before the Little Ice Age

I feel like the naming convention for Iceland and Greenland came about as described for Iceland but Greenland was just the name given to the green SW portion of the massive ice sheet and it stuck as the entire land mass rather than just the green region that was inhabited. The settlers disappeared so I’m sure there were stories told of the green land beyond the ice and it just became called Greenland

Temperature winter/summer variation of Nuuk would have been handy. Good show.

It should be noted that trees grow in Iceland but not in Greenland.

The Inuits are not descendants from Dorset culture but from the Thule people which emerges near Bering strait. Inuits ancestors arrived from the north-west roughly 1000 years ago, at the same time or slightly before the Vikings. Plaeo-Eskimo have almost no living descendants today.

Thanks!

G'day, mate! Love your channel and all the great information. Just one small request. If you could do us a favour outside the USA and add metric units, that would be totally awesome. Cheers! 😊

Iceland is NOT warmer because of volcanism, come on do your research. Icelands southeast coast is warm because of the North Atlantic Current. That current is warmed by the gulf current and also helps to make South East Greenland more habitable.

Largest island in the world? What about Australia? What about Antarctica? Pretty sure those are bigger than Greenland.

Hold on, isn't Anarctica less populated than Greenland?

An island that makes Hudson Bay look small. Amazing.

I think a bigger question is why the Hell does anyone live there? What a miserable place

I just found your channel and find it very interesting, thank you! I'm in USA and would love to hear your take on the effect of immigration (thinking specifically of Mexico and parts south) on the various states and regions you discuss.

It's the same with Australia. But they have desert instead of ice.

How can you talk so much about Greenland and so little - practically close to nothing at all - about Denmark and the interactions and history between the two?

Very interesting!

WIthout the glaciers, Greenland might be an archipelago like northern Canada. I wonder if the open sea between Canada's big open islands were once solid glacier and been mistaken for a continuous island.

The Thule, Dorset and Inuit people were not thought to have intermixed significantly, from what I understand.

A pretty glaring error at 07:09. The geothermal and volcanic activity of Iceland has almost ZERO effect on its climate. In fact, there are almost no places on earth where the geological activity affects the day to day climate in any meaningful way. Iceland's climate is significantly milder than Greenland's because of the Gulfstream's effects, the fact it is a much smaller island and the warm westerly Atlantic Winds which do not impact Greenland as much due to its proxmity to Canada. I'm honestly surprised that as a geography educator you could even float the idea that geothermal springs have a major effect on climate.

Ice is not the only reason, ice not melting by gulf stream is another 🙄

Great video. I've wondered why the two islands were called "Iceland" and "Greenland" when they seemed to be the opposite.

My father went to Thule regularly for work in the 70s and 80s, Greenland was a major topic in my childhood.

Very little is "known" about the underlying minerology of Greenland, subsequently speculation is rampant. It is a potential source of angular sand, valuable for making high quality concrete, but of little economic value since it has to be shipped so far to be used. The island is actually rather concave and the miles deep ice in the center is significantly trapped and largely resistant to massive flow into the sea. The edges of Greenland that are not ice covered, are rock and unsuitable for agriculture or significant ranching. The potential to exploit hydropower along the coast and use it to produce hydrogen for export has been proposed. Greenland is a very harsh place and most of it will remain so even as global temperatures rise.

No mention at all of the mercator projection. the map that makes so many people think Greenland is larger than it actually is?

Missed opportunity to have this video just be 5 minutes of silence then you saying "cold" followed by 5 more minutes of silence

Thanks for making a video on Greenland. Advise: decrease the overly repetitive narration

You didn’t answer why the us was interested in purchasing it, and you also didn’t talk about they were trying to get their independence from Denmark.

Greenland is now icier than during the relative warm period when Erik the Red named it.

I would definitely love to visit both greenland and iceland would i live in these places probably not, i love my sun, heat, birds and trees to much, still would love to visit

It's location is very strategic to the US and control of the Arctic.

It’s so incredibly empty because when we 🇬🇧 got there we realised there was no one to take it from.

Is it less densely populated than Antarctica? I find that very surprising.

Another GBG classic 👌

I love northern Greenland and want retire there in the winter

How about a Baffin Island clip. Baffin Island is pretty cool (at least in the spring and autumn)--it's kinda like a mini Greenland with its own ice sheets, fjords and a small capital, Iqaluit that's quite similar to Greenland's capital. Moreover, (and according to reports from certain time traveling bird from the future) these two unique islands will experience massive population growth in coming centuries due to climate change. Coming up: Stanley Cup 2125: Iqaluit vs Nuuk. Won't spoil the result here--you'll just have to wait and find out. (Hint: it will be a Canadian city's first Stanley Cup since 1993--you read it here first!)

I think a big part of it is that Nuuk is just not a great location for a capital. It’s right on the coast, so summers are pretty cold. Inland locations have much warmer summers. Also southern Greenland have warmer winters too. Nuuk (capital) July avg high: 52F Feb avg low: 12.4F Kangerlussuaq July avg high: 62.2F Feb avg low: -12.8F Narsarsuaq July avg high: 60.3F Feb avg low: 12.0F I think if Greenland had chosen a capital further inland it for one would have more land to develop a larger city, and secondly would have a much more attractive climate, a climate that can actually support trees!

Has anyone done oil and mineral exploration along the coasts or under the ice?

Try barren cold and remote

Greenland is cool.

Just to remind ourselves that the area of Greenland is grossly exaggerated in the map shown due to the nature of the map projection.

They could become a world food production powerhouse, if they ran power cables from geothermal plants in Iceland to power large greenhouses.

Hey bro your videos are fantastic. But 1 genuine criticism I have is if you could do all your voiceovers on the same mic/settings. Specifically, the mic in the first 30 seconds of the video is much nicer

Iceland has always supported a decent level of agriculture with root crops and sheep farming and it is a stone's throw from the world's richest cod fisheries off its SE coast. The earliest settlers were Irish monks. None of this is the case in Greenland, where the attempted European settlement died out in the 13th century.

It is likely in the 10th century was much warmer. The Viking settlement probably failed due to plummeting temperatures making livestock and farming impractical. The time of Roman occupation of the British Isles was much warmer as well. Odd that this is not presented here. Well not that odd. Would't want to offend the current climate cult.

The Vikings ran out of Walruses', and sailed further West to find more, such as Newfoundland.

CEO of YAPPING. Told NOTHING while talking 11 minutes straight.

It's cold and frozen and generally quite shit and it's "So Incredibly Empty" because it's cold and frozen and generally quite shit. Like.. DUH 🙄

Very interesting.

I know you get a lot of comments, so this may be overlooked. But look up and maybe do a video on the Vinland map and all that surrounding that mystery.

My city I live in has about double the population of Greenland. Wild.

It looks like a intact hit this would be a est of impact . 5.31 x 1025 Joules = 1.27 x 1010MegaTons. 11.500 yrs ago NW Greenland was struck by a 300m IRON CORE Object @ 54,000 mph.

No, it’s _not_ the ice… it’s the yetis.

The climate 1000 years ago was much warmer than today. That's why it really was green at that time. They could grove barley in Greenland for 200 years until the climate got colder leading up to the Little ice age. And now again it is becoming a little warmer.

How many times are you going to say the same thing, over and over again!

Excellent video, but you forget that the average temperature in the Viking Age was 7 degrees Celsius higher than today. American researchers have documented that the Vikings were in America 400 years before Columbus, it may have been because the temperature dropped and they migrated from Greenland to America. Genetic research has shown that Native American Indian tribes had Scandinavian genes.

I would like to visit someday

Thanks bro

If today was April Fool’s, I’d say my thumbnail is my Great Greenlander dog taken in the fiord in Greenland where we grow weed in our greenhouse.

the flatter parts of barren landscape with zero trees & foreboding or incredibly dull aspects is identical to the locations where ‘low cost’ or rental new housing is developed on the surrounds of villages & towns in southern England nowadays - those parts where no one has chosen to live throughout the previous 2000 years…😮👍

I bet there is some INSANE rockhounding there for like 2 weeks of the year ^^

I think that once they get those north shore beach resorts up and running and the NFL expansion teams in place, it should fill up nicely.😁

Reminds me of an old Gallagher joke, "Greenland is full of ice, Iceland is green!"

This is so much more entertaining than school

Has anybody asked Gertie Thunderbutt for her opinions? She's very good at opinions, quite opinionated in fact (if I may dare).

I wonder what the health of the local people is like. Have they moved from a fish and meat diet to a crap western diet like, Canada's Inuit people, and suffered the consequences?

When you first arrive in Greenland, you are very impressed by the extreme beauty of nature and the colorful buildings and their unique lifestyle. But after living there a few months, you become depressed by the extreme boredom and isolation and silence. You get the impression the natives rely on tourists for mot only money, but also a much needed change in their boring lives.

Iv been over Antarctica now thats ice

The real question is will Geoff run out of geography before hitting 1M subs?

Life is amazing

Greenland has so much ice and smow because it was previously at the north pole before the last pole shift

nothing new... he just rephrased everything that can be found within wikipedia

The only emptier island is Antarctica, the only island larger than Australia (and the only other continental one).

Please use metric units alongside the imperial system!

3:00 Small correction, this is the first time the Inuit were the sole inhabitants of Greenlands, as when the Inuit first arrived in Greenland, it already had Norse settlements

hmmm growing up in Australia, we were always taught that Australia is the largest island in the world.

The climate was warmer when Greenland was explored by the Vikings. It was more amenable to farming back then, but with our colder climate now it seems much less of an appropriate name.

Well that’s a few thousands more than I imagined were living there, I thought it was in the hundreds really.