Facts About Greenland

Facts about Greenland geography

How big is Greenland? Greenland is the world’s largest island, with a size of 2.175.600 square kilometers. That area is larger than the following countries combined: France, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, and Belgium.

9 facts about Greenland geography If you’re doing a quiz and get a question about Greenland, here are a few good facts to memorize.

• From north to south Greenland is 2,670 kilometers
• From east to west, there is 1,050 kilometers
• The closest country is Canada only 26 kilometers away
• Greenland’s highest point is Gunnbjorn’s Mountain, 3,733 meters
• Greenland’s southernmost point is Cape Farewell
• Greenland’s northernmost point on the mainland is Cape Morris Jessup
• Greenland’s westernmost point is Cape Alexander
• Greenland’s easternmost point is called Nordostrundingen
• Greenland is actually situated east, west, south and north of Iceland.

It is an interesting thought that Greenlands southernmost point lies on the same latitude as Oslo in Norway, while the westernmost point lies on the same longitude as New York. The northernmost point is Cape Morris Jessup, located only 740 km from the North Pole. There are also two small islands north of this, the Coffee Club and Oodaaq Island. However, they are very small so usually the distance to the North Pole is measured by the distance from the mainland.

Learn more about Greenland geography

How big is the Greenlandic Ice Sheet?

Approximately 80% of Greenland is permanently covered in ice. The Ice Sheet is covering the middle of the huge island and it is the world’s largest glacier, it is several kilometers thick and, in some places, it is so heavy that it has pushed part of the mainland below sea level.

4 crazy facts about the Greenlandic Ice Sheet

• It covers 1.8 million square kilometers
• It has a volume of 2.85 million cubic kilometers
• The Greenlandic Ice Sheet holds approximately 7% of all the fresh water reserves on Earth
• At its thickest point, The Greenlandic Ice Sheet is 3,500 meters.

Read more about the Greenlandic Ice Sheet.

What is Greenlands time zone?

Greenland spans three time zones when you include the Thule Air Base. As visitors or tourists, most of the time you only need to relate to one time zone as central Greenland is using GMT-3 (Greenwich Mean Time minus 3 hours). Thereby being four hours behind CET (Central European Time) and two hours ahead of EST (Eastern Standard Time, e.g. New York City).

In the town of Ittoqqortoormiit on the far east coast, they use GMT -2 and at Thule Air Base they use GMT-4).

Read more about the time difference between Greenland and Denmark.