1. THE ICE

It is not easy to condense the wonders of Greenland, the largest island in the world, into a few short paragraphs. One of the greatest attractions is the ice. The inland ice covers approximately 85% of Greenland's total area and at its centre the ice can be up to 3 km thick.

There are three kinds of ice in Greenland: compact ice, field ice and icebergs. Compact ice is salt water, which is frozen and covers the fjords between December and May/June.

Field ice is formed in the Arctic ocean north of Greenland and is carried along the coast of eastern Greenland by the current, rounding Cape Farewell and travelling north up the west coast. Field ice can create problems for shipping and make many villages inaccessible.

Icebergs break off glaciers at the edge of the inland ice and consist of fresh water. The age of the ice varies from approximately 500 to 100,000 years at the surface of the ice, but the bottom layers of the inland ice have been found to be up to 2 million years old.

The inland ice of Greenland is approximately 1.8 million km/sq in size. This is approximately 14 times the area of Great Britain.

Over the course of millions of years, the weight of the inland ice has pushed the original bedrock down approximately 800 metres. Greenland is home to the oldest rocks ever dated (3,700 million years). By comparison the earth is reckoned to be 4,600 million years old.

2. THE NATURAL WONDERS

The world's largest national park was created in 1974 when around one-third of Greenland was set aside for this purpose. In an area 972,000 km/sq (larger than Great Britain and France put together) the unique wildlife includes: polar bears, musk oxen, ermine and lemmings, arctic wolves, walrus and a variety of birds. The national park is also home to ruins from settlements several thousand years old and fossils which show that trees grew in the area millions of years ago.

Adventure seekers can enjoy activity holidays in Greenland involving hiking, skiing, angling, kayaking and adventure cruising. Many would think that Greenland is a cold and dark climate but, although polar darkness reigns for a period when the sun does not rise for three months, it is never totally dark. The reflection of the moon on the snow and ice make it possible to go out on dog sleds or skiing. After the shortest day (21st December) the daylight returns at an alarming speed. By the end of February Ilulissat will be basking in eleven hours of daylight and the sun will be in the sky for at least 9 of these.

The famous Northern Lights appear all year round, but can only be observed under a clear, dark night sky. The Northern Lights are generally most impressive and visible in the autumn months and they can "disappear" in the light summer nights.

3. THE PEOPLE

The population of Greenland is primarily Inuit, people who originally emigrated from Central Asia via Siberia, Alaska and Canada. The official language remains Greenlandic, an Inuit language quite unlike other languages. Inuit people of Canada, USA and Russia speak varieties of a language that is similar but no common written Inuit language exists.

Sparsely populated, Greenland has a population of 55,000 in a country with an area of 2,175,600 km/sq. This equates to 1 inhabitant per 39.5 km/sq as compared to 353 inhabitants per km/sq in the UK. The Greenlandic people, for obvious reasons, live along the coast.