Greenland, the world's largest island, is covered to a depth of three kilometres with a thick ice cap. The region is inhospitable, vast and empty. The winter lasts six to eight months. The temperature sometimes drops as low as minus fifty degrees Celsius, and in mid-winter the sun never appears above the horizon. During the brief summers the sun never sets at night. Ice and snow melt, and the temperature can reach as high as ten degrees Celsius. Habitation is only possible along the forty thousand kilometres of coastline. Here live some 57, 000 Greenlanders, or Kalaallit, as they call themselves.
 

Map of Greenland

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