Book About the Mapping of Greenland

A new book tells the story of the mapping of Greenland from the 1400s up until today. That is reported by Sermitsiaq.

It is the author Henrik Dupont who is behind the book. In the book, he describes how the mapping of Greenland has developed from small, incoherent pieces to Claudius Clavius' map of Scandinavia from 1427 - where Greenland first is mentioned on a map - until now.

The Greenlandic government Naalakkersuisut and the Agency for Data Supply and Infrastructure on Greenland is currently working on new digital maps over all of Greenland.

"In most European countries, mapping has played a vital part through history - both because of obvious economic interests, but also military interest - and during the last 200-300 years, military institutions have often been behind the mapping of countries," says Dupont.

"The same military interests have apparently not been interested in Greenland. The Danish map authorities have spent a lot of time mapping Greenland. I do not think that the Danish kings have always been aware of Greenland's potential - and the mapping has therefore been quite sporadic," believes the author.

He adds that the Soviet Union, interestingly enough, produced Russian maps of Greenland during the Cold War. The Soviet maps were based on publicly available maps, but were very secret - and it was not until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 that Denmark was made aware of the maps.