Greenland Today

Abstract

... Greenland forms an integral part of the Danish kingdom, and its area of 780,000 square miles is about fifty times that of the rest of Denmark put together. ... Greenland is the largest island in the world, measuring from south to north more than 1,500 miles, but five-sixths of the area is covered by the vast ice cap, which has a thickness of up to 10,000 feet. Only a narrow coastal fringe is ice-free, and even there arctic conditions prevail and forests are non-existent. ... The 25,000 Greenlanders [0.5% of the total Danish population] who inhabit the coasts, in particular the southern part of the west coast, are of mixed Eskimo and Scandinavian extraction. The connection between Greenland and Scandinavia goes back a thousand years to the time of the Vikings .... The Greenlanders now all belong to the national Lutheran Church of Denmark, and in every respect enjoy equal status with other members of the Danish population. Politically, Greenland constitutes a part of the Danish democracy. Popularly elected local councils administer local affairs, and two Greenlanders, elected in Greenland, sit in the Folketing, the Danish Parliament. ... The economy of Greenland is based primarily on the sea. The land offers few facilities for economic development. ... The primitive economy was originally founded on seal-hunting, but the change in world climate, which has taken place during the last generation has forced the Greenlanders to reorganize their economic life as the seal vanished from southern Greenland waters and fish appeared to take its place. ... For nearly a hundred years the mineral cryolite, the bulk of which is used in the aluminium industry, has been mined at Ivigtut, in southwest Greenland. ... Since the war, an intensive geological survey of the whole of Greenland has been undertaken .... Greenland is remarkable for, among other things, the fact that there is no income tax - not yet! But there is other taxation, especially on spirits, tobacco, and various other luxuries. The revenue from these taxes goes to the local councils, which spend the bulk of it on social welfare, especially the care of the aged, invalids, orphans, etc. ... the Danish Government has assumed responsibility for the health services. The climate, and the poor housing that still exists in many places have meant that the health conditions in the past have not been good. Tuberculosis, in particular, has always been a scourge. ... The work of educating the people of Greenland began over two hundred years ago and it is a hundred years since illiteracy was abolished. ... there is at present a great deal of activity in adult education .... In a period that has seen the breaking-up of great colonial empires and the attaining of independence by former colonies, the opposite development has taken place in Greenland: a former colony has been integrated into the kingdom. ...