Despite its name, Greenland is mostly a land of snow and ice, with four-fifths of the country covered by an ice sheet. Yet its northernmost point, Peary Land (named after the explorer Robert Peary, widely credited as being the first person to reach the north pole), is actually ice free, because the air is so dry that snow does not fall there, making it a polar desert.
As the world’s largest island, with a land area of more than 2m sq km, Greenland stretches over 34 degrees of latitude, from 83 degrees north to 60 degrees north – roughly level with the Shetland Islands.
