Greenland and Iceland name swap

**ccarlin** · 12-05-2002, 09:50 PM

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Dec-05-02 AT 09:51PM (EST)[/font][p]Gordon posed a good question in the Around the World thread in the DF forum.

Why is Greenland called that when it is mostly ice, while Iceland is called that when it has a lot of green.

I thought the early explorers did that to trick other explorers in going to Greenland and leaving nice Iceland to themselves.

Does anyone know the real story?

**Ivaneck** · 12-06-2002, 05:45 AM

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Dec-06-02 AT 06:01AM (EST)[/font][p]Hello,

Probably Iceland have this name because, in 874 a.C., the Norwegian explorers commanded by Ingolfur Arnadsson that discovered it, had his first sight of the island near the Vatnajokull, the big glacier located in the south eastern side of the island.

In the other hand, Eric "The Red" Thorvaldson, the exiled Icelandic man who discovered Greenland in 982 a.C., returned in 985 to Iceland from his new discovered land decided to convince Icelanders to colonize the new territories that he had discovered. To help to promote his intentions, it cheekily used the denomination of Greenland to make attractive the adventure.

Best regards,

Joan Coll
Barcelona, Catalonia

Edit/P.S.: There are unconfirmed stories about an Irish man called Brendan who reached Iceland in 550 a.C., and posterior Irish settlements in the island, but my personal supposition, based in the uncertainty of this stories, is that the name of Iceland come from the Norwegian explorers.

**Matt** · 12-06-2002, 09:04 AM

thats exactly what the history channel says ;)

**Ivaneck** · 12-06-2002, 09:20 AM

To read never has left me time to watch TV :-)

The source was a book called Asimov's Chronology of Science & Discovery. Good book.

Regards,

Joan Coll
Barcelona, Catalonia

**palmpilot** · 12-06-2002, 12:37 PM

I read somewhere ( think it was globalwarming.org - skeptic enviro site ) that Greenland was FARMED by the Romans a thousand years ago. So maybe it was green once. pp

**edude** · 12-06-2002, 01:19 PM

I didn't think the Romans made it that far. I thought England was about thier limit. I reserve the right to be wrong, however.

Eric

**C210** · 12-07-2002, 03:56 AM

Thanks for that, guys. It had always been something I wanted to find out, and now I know!

Cheers!
_______________________________________

Gordon Edwards
gje99@postmark.net

**palmpilot** · 12-07-2002, 05:05 PM

sorry, wasn't Romans, silly me :)

"The Vikings were farming on Greenland in the years 1000 to 1300, indicating that the temperature must have been several degrees warmer then than now. This archeological information is ignored by all "global warming" researchers. These temperature cycles are beyond human interaction or control. " pp