Greenland

The early Norse settlers named the island Greenland. In the Icelandic sagas, the Norwegian Erik the Red was exiled from Iceland with his father, Thorvald Asvaldsson, who had committed manslaughter. With his extended family and his thralls (slaves or serfs), he set out in ships to explore an icy land known to lie to the northwest. After finding a habitable area and settling there, he named it Grœnland (translated as "Greenland"), supposedly in the hope that the pleasant name would attract settlers. The Saga of Erik the Red states: "In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favourable name." The name of the territory in the Greenlandic language is Kalaallit Nunaat, 'land of the Kalaallit', the Kalaallit being the principal group of Greenlandic Inuit who inhabit the territory's western region. The Greenlandic Inuit term Nunaat does not include waters and ice.

=== Early Palaeo-Inuit cultures ===

In prehistoric times, Greenland was home to several successive Palaeo-Inuit cultures known primarily through archaeological finds. The earliest entry of the Palaeo-Inuit into Greenland is thought to have occurred about 2500 BC. From about 2500 BC to 800 BC, southern and western Greenland was inhabited by the Saqqaq culture. Most finds of remains from that period have been around Disko Bay, including the site of Saqqaq, for which the culture is named.

From 2400 BC to 1300 BC, the Independence I culture existed in northern Greenland. It was a part of the Arctic small-tool tradition. Towns including Deltaterrasserne appeared. About 800 BC the Saqqaq culture disappeared, and the Early Dorset culture emerged in western Greenland and the Independence II culture in northern Greenland. It is unknown whether the Dorset people ever encountered the later Thule people. The people of the Dorset culture lived mainly by hunting seals and reindeer.

From 986, the west coast was settled by Icelanders and Norwegians, through a contingent of 14 boats led by Erik the Red. They formed three settlements – the Eastern Settlement, the Western Settlement, and the Middle Settlement – on fjords near the southwestern tip of the island. They shared the island with the late Dorset culture inhabitants, who occupied the northern and western parts, and later with those of the Thule culture who entered from the north. Norse Greenlanders submitted to Norwegian rule in 1261 under the Kingdom of Norway. The Kingdom of Norway entered a personal union with Denmark in 1380, and from 1397 was a part of the Kalmar Union.

Norse settlements such as Brattahlíð thrived for centuries before disappearing in the 15th century, perhaps at the onset of the Little Ice Age. Except for some runic inscriptions, the only contemporary records or historiography that survive from the Norse settlements are of their contact with Iceland or Norway. Medieval Norwegian sagas and historical works mention Greenland's economy, the bishops of Gardar, and the collection of tithes. A chapter in the Konungs skuggsjá (The King's Mirror) describes Norse Greenland's exports, imports, and grain cultivation.

Icelandic saga accounts of life in Greenland were composed in the 13th century and later but are not primary sources for the history of early Norse Greenland. Those accounts are closer to primary for more contemporaneous accounts of late Norse Greenland. Modern understanding therefore mostly depends on the physical data from archaeological sites. Interpretation of ice-core and clam-shell data suggests that between AD 800 and 1300 the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland had a relatively mild climate, several degrees Celsius warmer than usual in the North Atlantic with trees and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed. Barley was grown as a crop up to the 70th parallel. The ice cores show that Greenland has had dramatic temperature shifts many times in the past 100,000 years. Similarly the Icelandic Book of Settlements records famines during the winters, in which "the old and helpless were killed and thrown over cliffs".

These Norse settlements vanished during the 14th and early 15th centuries. The demise of the Western Settlement coincides with a decrease in summer and winter temperatures. A study of North Atlantic seasonal temperature variability during the Little Ice Age showed a significant decrease in maximum summer temperatures beginning about the turn of the 14th century – as much as 6 to 8 °C (11 to 14 °F) lower than modern summer temperatures. The study also found that the lowest winter temperatures of the last 2,000 years occurred in the late 14th century and early 15th century. The Eastern Settlement was probably abandoned in the early to mid-15th century, during this cold period.

Theories drawn from archaeological excavations at Herjolfsnes in the 1920s suggest that the condition of human bones from this period indicates that the Norse population was malnourished, possibly because of soil erosion resulting from the Norsemen's destruction of natural vegetation in the course of farming, turf-cutting, and wood-cutting. Malnutrition may also have resulted from widespread deaths from pandemic plague; the decline in temperatures during the Little Ice Age; and armed conflicts with the Skrælings (Norse word for Inuit, meaning "wretches"). The Icelandic Annals record that in 1379, the Skrælings killed 18 Norse Greenlanders. Recent archaeological studies somewhat challenge the general assumption that the Norse colonization had a dramatic negative environmental effect on the vegetation. Data support traces of a possible Norse soil amendment strategy. More recent evidence suggests that the Norse, who never numbered more than about 2,500, gradually abandoned the Greenland settlements over the 15th century as walrus ivory, the most valuable export from Greenland, decreased in price because of competition with other sources of higher-quality ivory, and that there was actually little evidence of starvation or difficulties.

Other explanations of the disappearance of the Norse settlements have been proposed:

Lack of support from the homeland.

Ship-borne marauders (such as Basque, English, or German pirates), rather than Skrælings, could have plundered and displaced the Greenlanders.

They were "the victims of hidebound thinking and of a hierarchical society dominated by the Church and the biggest land owners. In their reluctance to see themselves as anything but Europeans, the Greenlanders failed to adopt the kind of apparel that the Inuit employed as protection against the cold and damp or to borrow any of the Eskimo hunting gear."

That portion of the Greenlander population willing to adopt Inuit ways and means intermarried with and assimilated into the Inuit community.

The structure of Norse society created a conflict between the short-term interests of those in power, and the long-term interests of the society as a whole.

The Thule people are the ancestors of the current Greenlandic population. No genes from the Palaeo-Inuit Dorset culture have been found in the present population of Greenland. The Thule culture migrated eastward from what is now known as Alaska around 1000 AD, reaching Greenland around 1300. The Paleo-Eskimos had been completely replaced by the Thule people (the ancestors of the Inuit), who were descended from people of the Birnirk culture of Siberia. The Thule culture was the first to introduce technological innovations such as dog sleds and toggling harpoons to Greenland. There is an account of contact and conflict with the Norse population, as told by the Inuit. It is republished in The Norse Atlantic Sagas, by Gwyn Jones. Jones reports that there is also an account of perhaps the same incident, of more doubtful provenance, told by the Norse side.

In 1500, King Manuel I of Portugal sent Gaspar Corte-Real to Greenland in search of a Northwest Passage to Asia which, according to the Treaty of Tordesillas, was part of Portugal's sphere of influence. In 1501, Corte-Real returned with his brother, Miguel Corte-Real. After finding the sea frozen, they headed south and arrived in Labrador and Newfoundland. Upon the brothers' return to Portugal, the cartographic information supplied by Corte-Real was incorporated into a map of the world which was presented to Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, by Alberto Cantino in 1502. The Cantino planisphere, made in Lisbon, accurately depicts the southern coastline of Greenland.

In 1605–1607, King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway sent a series of expeditions to Greenland and Arctic waterways to locate the lost eastern Norse settlement and assert Danish-Norwegian sovereignty over Greenland. The expeditions were mostly unsuccessful, partly due to leaders who lacked experience with the difficult Arctic ice and weather conditions, and partly because the expedition leaders were given instructions to search for the Eastern Settlement on the east coast of Greenland just north of Cape Farewell, which is almost inaccessible due to southward drifting ice. The pilot on all three trips was English explorer James Hall.

After the Norse settlements died off the various Inuit groups prevailed, but the Dano-Norwegian government never forgot or relinquished the claims to Greenland that it had inherited from the Norse. When it re-established access to Greenland in the early 17th century, Denmark-Norway asserted its sovereignty claims over the island. In 1721 a joint mercantile and clerical expedition led by Dano-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede was sent to Greenland, not knowing whether a Norse civilization remained there. This expedition was part of the Dano-Norwegian colonization of the Americas. After 15 years in Greenland, Hans Egede left his son Paul Egede in charge of the mission there and returned to Denmark, where he established a Greenland Seminary. The colony was centred at Godthåb ("Good Hope", today's Nuuk) on the southwest coast. Gradually, Greenland was opened up to Danish merchants but closed to those from other countries.

When the union between the crowns of Denmark and Norway was dissolved in 1814, the Treaty of Kiel severed Norway's former colonies and left them under the control of the Danish monarch. Norway occupied the uninhabited eastern Greenland as Erik the Red's Land in July 1931, claiming that it constituted terra nullius. Norway and Denmark agreed to submit the matter in 1933 to the Permanent Court of International Justice, which decided against Norway.

Greenland's connection to Denmark was severed on 9 April 1940, early in World War II, after Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany. On 8 April 1941, the United States occupied Greenland to defend it against a possible invasion by Germany. The United States' occupation of Greenland continued until 1945. Greenland was able to buy goods from the United States and Canada by selling cryolite from the mine at Ivittuut. The United States military used Bluie as a code name for Greenland, where they kept several bases named "Bluie (East or West) (sequential numeral)". The major air bases were Bluie West-1 at Narsarsuaq and Bluie West-8 at Søndre Strømfjord (Kangerlussuaq), both of which are still used as international airports.

During this war, the system of government changed: Governor Eske Brun ruled the island under a law of 1925 that allowed governors to take control under extreme circumstances; Governor Aksel Svane was transferred to the United States to lead the commission to supply Greenland. The Danish Sirius Patrol guarded the northeastern shores of Greenland in 1942 using dog sleds. They detected several German weather stations and alerted American troops, who destroyed the facilities. After the collapse of the Third Reich, Albert Speer briefly considered escaping in a small aeroplane to hide out in Greenland but changed his mind and decided to surrender to the United States Armed Forces.

Greenland had a protected and very isolated society until 1940. It was a colony, and it was believed that its society would be subject to exploitation or even eradication if the country was opened up. The Danish government had maintained a strict monopoly of Greenlandic trade, allowing no more than small scale barter trading with British whalers. In wartime Greenland developed a sense of self-reliance through self-government and independent communication with the outside world. Despite this change, in 1946 a commission including the highest Greenlandic council, the Landsrådene, recommended patience and no radical reform of the system.

The United States offered to buy Greenland from Denmark for US$100 million in 1946 (equivalent to US$1.7 billion in 2025). Denmark firmly rejected the offer, as the island was seen as an integral part of the Danish kingdom, important to its history and national identity. In 1951 Denmark and the United States signed the Greenland Defense Agreement, which allowed the United States to keep its military bases in Greenland, and to establish new bases or "defence areas" if Denmark agreed, and if deemed necessary by NATO. The US military could freely use and move between these defence areas, but was not to infringe upon Danish sovereignty in Greenland.

The United States greatly expanded Thule Air Base between 1951 and 1953 as part of a unified NATO defence strategy. The local population of three nearby villages was moved more than 100 km (62 miles) away in the winter. The United States tried to construct a subterranean network of secret nuclear missile launch sites in the Greenlandic ice cap, named Project Iceworm. According to documents declassified in 1996, this project was managed from Camp Century from 1960 to 1966 before abandonment as unworkable. The missiles were never fielded, and necessary consent from the Danish Government to do so was never sought. The Danish government was not aware of the programme's mission until 1997, when they discovered it while looking in the declassified documents for records related to the crash of a nuclear-equipped B-52 bomber near the Thule air base in 1968.

The first step towards a change of government was initiated with the Greenland Commission, which operated from 1948 to 1950. With its final report, the G-50, the first steps toward the modernization of Greenland were taken. The report recommended that Greenland become a modern welfare state, modelled after Denmark proper and with Denmark's development as sponsor, and the trade monopoly was abolished.

With the 1953 Danish constitution, Greenland's colonial status ended, and the island was incorporated into the Danish realm as an amt ('county'), and thus fully integrated into Denmark like all other Danish counties. Danish citizenship was extended to Greenlanders. Danish policies toward Greenland consisted of a strategy of cultural assimilation, fostered by a campaign of social modernization that included a large expansion of housing and infrastructure in the Danish mold to encourage the populace to move from traditional villages and trading posts into urban centers; the Greenland Provincial Council supported this expansion. One such project, the housing development Blok P in Nuuk, Denmark's largest, came to house nearly 1% of the population before its unsuitability to its many Inuit residents led the government to demolish it in 2012. The Danish government also allowed the introduction of the Danish custom of drinking alcohol, till then not sold in Greenland.

During this period, the Danish government promoted the exclusive use of the Danish language in official matters, and required Greenlanders to go to Denmark for their post-secondary education. Many Greenlandic children grew up in boarding schools in southern Denmark, and some lost their cultural ties to Greenland. While the policies "succeeded" in the sense of shifting Greenlanders from being primarily subsistence hunters into being urbanized wage earners, the Greenlandic elite began to reassert a Greenlandic cultural identity. A movement developed in favour of Greenlandic independence, reaching its peak in the 1970s. A spectrum of local political parties, broadly along European rightist-to-leftist lines, has also formed, at least one (the Inuit Ataqatigiit) asserting independence.

In 1973, an amicable border dispute between Denmark and Canada arose over the ownership of Hans Island, a small island in Nares Strait directly between Greenland and the Canadian Northwest Territories (in present-day Nunavut). The island remained in dispute until 2022, when both countries agreed to split the disputed island roughly in half. Due to political complications in relation to Denmark's entry into the European Common Market in 1972, Denmark began to seek a different status for Greenland, resulting in the Home Rule Act of 1979. A referendum was held on 17 January 1979. This gave Greenland limited autonomy, with its own legislature taking control of some internal policies, while the Parliament of Denmark maintained full control of external policies, security, and natural resources. The law came into effect on 1 May 1979. The Danish monarch remains Greenland's head of state. In 1985, Greenland left the European Economic Community (EEC), as it did not agree with the EEC's commercial fishing regulations and an EEC ban on sealskin products.

As in metropolitan Denmark, Greenland has seen significant expansion of the welfare state in the postwar era. Education and healthcare are free, and LGBTQ rights in Greenland are some of the most extensive in the Americas and the world. In 1987, the University of Greenland was founded to provide Greenlanders with higher education in their own language and country.

Greenland voters approved a referendum on greater autonomy on 25 November 2008. According to one study, the 2008 vote created what "can be seen as a system between home rule and full independence". On 21 June 2009, Greenland gained self-rule with provisions for assuming responsibility for self-government of its judicial affairs, policing matters, and natural resources. Also, Greenlanders were recognized as a separate people under international law. Denmark maintains control of the territory's foreign affairs and defence matters, and upholds an annual block grant of 3.2 billion kr. As Greenland begins to collect revenues from its natural resources, this grant will gradually be diminished; this is generally considered to be a step toward the territory's eventual full independence from Denmark. In 2009, Greenlandic was declared the sole official language of Greenland at a historic ceremony.

During the second presidency of Donald Trump, the United States has pursued a campaign to annex Greenland by various means. This followed a failed attempt by Trump to purchase Greenland during his first presidency, that was firmly turned down by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. The Danish Defence Intelligence Service included the United States as a potential threat to national security alongside Russia and China in its threat assessment that year. On the international stage, Trump's threats against Greenland have been described as a new, potentially unprecedented challenge to NATO.

Greenland is the world's largest non-continental island and the third largest area in North America after Canada and the United States. It lies between latitudes 59° and 83°N, and longitudes 11° and 74°W, with over 80% of its land mass north of the Arctic Circle. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Greenland Sea to the east, the North Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, the Davis Strait to the southwest, Baffin Bay to the west, and the Nares Strait and Lincoln Sea to the northwest. The nearest countries are Canada, with which it shares a maritime border to the west and southwest across Nares Strait and Baffin Bay, as well as a shared land border on Hans Island; and Iceland to the southeast. It is the largest constituent country by area in the world and is the fourth largest country subdivision in the world and largest in North America.

The total area is 2,166,086 km2 (836,330 sq mi) (including other offshore minor islands), of which the Greenland ice sheet covers 1,755,637 km2 (677,855 sq mi) (81%) and has a volume of approximately 2,850,000 km3 (680,000 cu mi). The highest point is Gunnbjørn Fjeld at 3,700 m (12,100 ft) of the Watkins Range (East Greenland mountain range). The majority of Greenland, however, is less than 1,500 m (4,900 ft) in elevation. The lowest temperature ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere was recorded near the topographic summit of the Greenland ice sheet, on 22 December 1991, when the temperature reached −69.6 °C (−93.3 °F). In Nuuk, the average daily temperature varies over the seasons from −5.1 to 9.9 °C (22.8 to 49.8 °F).

Below the ice there is a series of canyons, the biggest called Greenland's Grand Canyon which was formed by flowing rivers of water from the repeated cycle of ice melting and new ice forming. Near the coast, elevations rise suddenly and steeply. The ice flows generally to the coast from the centre of the island. A survey led by French scientist Paul-Emile Victor in 1951 concluded that under the ice sheet Greenland is composed of three large islands. This is disputed, but if it is so, they would be separated by narrow straits, reaching the sea at Ilulissat Icefjord, at Greenland's Grand Canyon and south of Nordostrundingen. All towns and settlements of Greenland are situated along the ice-free coast, with the population being concentrated along the west coast. The northeastern part of Greenland is not part of any municipality and is the site of the world's largest national park, Northeast Greenland National Park.

At least four scientific expedition stations and camps had been established on the ice sheet in the ice-covered central part of Greenland (indicated as pale blue in the adjacent map): Eismitte, North Ice, North GRIP Camp and Raven Skiway. There is a year-round station Summit Camp on the ice sheet, established in 1989. The radio station Jørgen Brønlund Fjord was, until 1950, the northernmost permanent outpost in the world. The extreme north of Greenland, Peary Land, is not covered by an ice sheet because the air there is too dry to produce snow, which is essential in the production and maintenance of an ice sheet.

The northernmost point of land on Earth was long thought to be Cape Morris Jesup at the northern tip of mainland Greenland. However, in 1969 a Canadian team surveyed Kaffeklubben Island (latitude 83° 39′ 45″ N), which was first recorded in 1900 and first visited in 1921, and determined that its northernmost point is 750 metres (2,460 ft) north of Cape Morris Jesup. It is thus the northernmost undisputed permanent land.

Other points have been claimed to be the northernmost point, with dispute over the title arising from ice sheets, water movement and inundation, and storm activity that may build, shift, or destroy banks of gravelly moraine material. In 1978 Uffe Petersen, a member of the Danish Geodetic Institute, discovered Oodaaq Island at 83° 40' 32.5" N. Its last confirmed sighting was in 1979. In 2003, a small protrusion of rocks and boulders, 35 m × 15 m (115 ft × 49 ft) in length and width, was discovered by Arctic explorer Dennis Schmitt and his team at latitude 83° 42' N and unofficially named 83-42. Whether this land is permanent is uncertain; a 2022 bathymetric survey determined that it was likely not connected to the seafloor but rather rocky material on top of sea ice and thus not land.

The Greenland ice sheet continually loses some mass from ice calving at its coasts, but this used to be balanced by the accumulation of snowfall. However, Greenland has been warming since around 1900, and from the 1980s the losses became larger than the gains. After 1996, Greenland has not had a single year when it did not lose ice mass on average. In the 2010s, the Greenland ice sheet melted at its fastest rate for at least the past 12,000 years and it is on track to exceed that later in the 21st century. In 2012, 2019 and 2021, so-called "massive melting events" occurred when practically the entire surface of the ice sheet was melting and no accumulation took place. During the 2021 event, rain fell at Greenland's highest point for the first time in recorded history, an event so unexpected that the research station at the summit had no rain gauges for the occasion.

As with the ice loss elsewhere in the world, the melting contributed and continues to contribute to sea level rise. Between 2012 and 2017, the Greenland melting added an average of 0.68 millimetres (0.027 in) per year, equal to 37% of sea level rise from land ice sources (excluding thermal expansion of water from the continual increase in the ocean heat content). By the end of the 21st century, the melting of Greenland alone is projected to add between ~6 cm (2+1⁄2 in) if the temperature change is kept below 2 °C (3.6 °F), to around 13 cm (5 in) if the most intense climate change scenario with ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions is assumed. Under this scenario, the worst case for Greenland melting could reach 33 cm (13 in) of sea level rise equivalent. The large quantities of meltwater also affect the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation by diluting key currents, slowing it down. Due to this input of fresh meltwater, the circulation may even collapse outright with widespread detrimental effects, although research suggests this is likely only if the highest possible warming is sustained for multiple centuries.

Greenland's ice sheet has a volume of ~3,000,000 cubic kilometres (700,000 cu mi). If it were all to melt, global sea level would increase by ~7.5 m (25 ft) from this cause alone. However, research shows that it will take at least 1,000 years for the ice sheet to disappear even with very high rates of global warming, and around 10,000 years under lower rates of warming (which still cross the threshold for the ice sheet's disappearance). This threshold likely lies between 1.7 °C (3.1 °F) and 2.3 °C (4.1 °F). Reducing the warming back to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) or lower above preindustrial levels (such as through large-scale carbon dioxide removal) would arrest the losses but still cause greater ultimate sea level rise than if the threshold had never been exceeded. Further, 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) appears to commit the Greenland ice sheet to 1.4 m (4+1⁄2 ft) of sea level rise. A study published in January 2025 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports an "abrupt, coherent, climate-driven transformation" in the states of lakes in Greenland from "blue" (more transparent) to "brown" (less transparent) after a season of both record heat and rainfall drove change in these systems, which may have reached a tipping point . These changes are said to alter "numerous physical, chemical, and biological lake features", and are said to be unprecedented.

In 2007, the existence of a new island was announced. Named Uunartoq Qeqertaq ('warming island'), this land mass was present off the coast of Greenland but was covered by a glacier, and therefore presumed to be a peninsula. This glacier was discovered in 2002 to be shrinking rapidly, and by 2007 it had completely melted away, leaving the exposed island. In 2007, the island was named 'Place of the Year' by the Oxford Atlas of the World. Ben Keene, the atlas's editor, commented:

In the last two or three decades, global warming has reduced the size of glaciers throughout the Arctic and earlier this year, news sources confirmed what climate scientists already knew: water, not rock, lay beneath this ice bridge on the east coast of Greenland. More islets are likely to appear as the sheet of frozen water covering the world's largest island continues to melt.

Some controversy surrounded the history of the island in 2008, specifically over whether the island might have been revealed during a brief warm period in Greenland during the mid-20th century.

Greenland was part of the Precambrian continent of Laurentia, the eastern core of which forms the Greenland Shield, while the less exposed coastal strips became a plateau. On these ice-free coastal strips are sediments formed in the Precambrian, overprinted by metamorphism and now formed by glaciers, which continue into the Cenozoic and Mesozoic in parts of the island.

In the east and west of Greenland there are remnants of flood basalts and igneous intrusions, such as the Skaergaard intrusion. Notable rock provinces (metamorphic igneous rocks, ultramafics, and anorthosites) are found on the southwest coast at Qeqertarsuatsiaat. East of Nuuk, the banded iron ore region of Isukasia, over three billion years old, contains the world's oldest rocks, such as greenlandite (a rock composed predominantly of hornblende and hyperthene), formed 3.8 billion years ago, and nuummite. In southern Greenland, the Illimaussaq alkaline complex consists of pegmatites such as nepheline, syenites (especially kakortokite or naujaite) and sodalite (sodalite-foya). In Ivittuut, where cryolite was formerly mined, there are fluoride-bearing pegmatites. To the north of Igaliku, there are the Gardar alkaline pegmatitic intrusions of augite syenite, gabbro, etc.

To the west and southwest are Palaeozoic carbonatite complexes at Kangerlussuaq (Gardiner complex) and Safartoq, and basic and ultrabasic igneous rocks at Uiffaq on Disko Island, where there are masses of heavy native iron up to 25 t (28 short tons) in the basalts. The palaeontology of East Greenland is specially rich, with some of the early tetrapods such as the Acanthostega and Ichthyostega from the Devonian and unique Triassic animals such as the phytosaur Mystriosuchus alleroq and the dinosaurs Issi saaneq and tracks.

Greenland is home to two ecoregions: Kalaallit Nunaat high arctic tundra and Kalaallit Nunaat low arctic tundra. There are approximately 700 known species of insects in Greenland, which is low compared with other countries (over one million species have been described worldwide). The sea is rich in fish and invertebrates, especially in the milder West Greenland Current; a large part of the Greenland fauna is associated with marine-based food chains, including large colonies of seabirds. The few native land mammals in Greenland include the polar bear, reindeer (introduced by Europeans), arctic fox, arctic hare, musk ox, collared lemming, ermine, and arctic wolf. The last four are found naturally only in East Greenland, having immigrated from Ellesmere Island. There are dozens of species of seals and whales along the coast. Land fauna consists predominantly of animals which have spread from North America or, in the case of many birds and insects, from Europe. There are no native or free-living reptiles or amphibians on the island.

Phytogeographically, Greenland belongs to the Arctic province of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. The island is sparsely populated in vegetation; plant life consists mainly of grassland and small shrubs, which are regularly grazed by livestock. The most common tree native to Greenland is the European white birch (Betula pubescens) along with grey-leaf willow (Salix glauca), rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), common juniper (Juniperus communis) and other smaller trees, mainly willows. Greenland's flora consists of about 500 species of "higher" plants, such as flowering plants, ferns, horsetails and lycopodiophyta. Of the other groups, the lichens are the most diverse, with about 950 species; there are 600–700 species of fungi; mosses and bryophytes are also found. Most of Greenland's higher plants have circumpolar or circumboreal distributions; only a dozen species of saxifrage and hawkweed are endemic. A few plant species were introduced by the Norsemen, such as cow vetch.

The terrestrial vertebrates of Greenland include the Greenland Dog, which was introduced by the Inuit, as well as European-introduced species such as Greenlandic sheep, goats, cattle, reindeer, horse, chicken and sheepdog, all descendants of animals imported by Europeans. Marine mammals include the hooded seal (Cystophora cristata) as well as the grey seal (Halichoerus grypus). Whales frequently pass very close to Greenland's shores in the late summer and early autumn. Whale species include the beluga whale, blue whale, Greenland whale, fin whale, humpback whale, minke whale, narwhal, pilot whale, sperm whale.

As of 2009, 269 species of fish from over 80 different families are known from the waters surrounding Greenland. Almost all are marine species with only a few in freshwater, such as Atlantic salmon and charr. The fishing industry is the primary industry of Greenland's economy, accounting for the majority of the territory's total exports. Birds, particularly seabirds, are an important part of Greenland's animal life; they consist of both Palearctic and Nearctic species, breeding populations of auks, puffins, skuas, and kittiwakes are found on steep mountainsides. Greenland's ducks and geese include common eider, long-tailed duck, king eider, white-fronted goose, pink-footed goose and barnacle goose. Breeding migratory birds include the snow bunting, lapland bunting, ringed plover, red-throated loon and red-necked phalarope. Non-migratory land birds include the arctic redpoll, ptarmigan, short-eared owl, snowy owl, gyrfalcon and white-tailed eagle.

The Greenlandic government, Naalakkersuisut, holds executive power in local government affairs. The head of the Greenlandic government is called Naalakkersuisut Siulittaasuat ("Premier"). Any other member of the cabinet is called a Naalakkersuisoq ("Minister"). The Greenlandic parliament is called Inatsisartut ("Legislators"). The parliament currently has 31 members.

In contemporary times, elections are held at municipal, national (inatsisartut), and kingdom (folketing) levels. Greenland is a self-governing entity within the constitutional monarchy of the Kingdom of Denmark, in which King Frederik X is the head of state. The monarch officially retains executive power and presides over the Council of State (privy council). However, following the introduction of a parliamentary system of government, the duties of the monarch have since become strictly representative and ceremonial, such as the formal appointment and dismissal of the prime minister and other ministers in the executive government. The monarch is not answerable for their actions, and the monarch's person is sacrosanct.

Following World War II, the United Nations mandated that colonies should become independent, enter into free association with another country, or be fully integrated into the metropole (the former colonial power). Denmark opted in 1952 to integrate Greenland into the Danish Realm. In 1979, the Danish government and parliament introduced home rule for Greenland which meant that Naalakkersuisut could assume control over 17 different areas of government. Further devolution of power from Denmark to Greenland came with the "Greenland Self-Government Act" (GSGA) in 2009, that added 33 new areas of government to the pool, the Naalakkersuisut assume control over. The GSGA also resulted from a recognition in Denmark that the people of Greenland had a right to self-determination, and gave a legal section for Naalakkersuisut to trigger an independence process (Section 21, GSGA). Greenland membership in the Council of Europe through Denmark also shows activities at international level, with the last recorded activity in January 2025 concerning a visit from the Committee for the Prevention of Torture.

The party system was dominated by the social-democratic Siumut and the democratic socialist Inuit Ataqatigiit, both of which broadly have argued for greater independence from Denmark. While the 2009 election saw the unionist Democrats (two MPs) decline greatly, the 2013 election consolidated the power of the two main parties at the expense of the smaller groups, and saw the eco-socialist Inuit Party elected to the Parliament for the first time. The dominance of the Forward and Inuit Community parties began to wane after the snap 2014 and 2018 elections. The non-binding 2008 referendum on self-governance favouring increased self-governance and autonomy was passed winning 76.22% of the vote.

In 1985, Greenland left the European Economic Community (EEC), unlike Denmark, which remained a member. The EEC later became the European Union (EU, renamed and expanded in scope in 1992). Greenland retains some ties through its associated relationship with the EU. However, EU law largely does not apply to Greenland except in the area of trade. Greenland is designated as a member of the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) and is thus officially not a part of the EU, though Greenland can and does receive support from the European Development Fund, Multiannual Financial Framework, European Investment Bank and EU programmes.