Greenland is about 50 times the size of Denmark, and for centuries it belonged to the crown of Norway, together with Iceland and the Faroe Islands. In 1814 Denmark lost Norway to Sweden, but it kept all three islands. A few words in brackets in Article IV of the Treaty of Kiel made the difference: “Greenland, the Ferroe Isles, and Iceland, excepted.” Two days later, the Swedish negotiator explained in a letter why he had agreed. This is how Norway’s sea empire became Danish, and why two of those islands are still Danish today.

In this video: Norway’s realm around 1265, the Faroese saga, Iceland’s Old Covenant, the Norse in Greenland, Margaret I and the Kalmar Union, the 1536 “Norway paragraph”, Orkney and Shetland pawned for a royal dowry in 1468 and never redeemed, the trade monopolies, Hans Egede and the Bergen company, Napoleon’s defeat and the Treaty of Kiel, Edmund Bourke and Gustaf af Wetterstedt, the handwritten insertion in the margin, the myth that Sweden “forgot” the islands, Pomerania, Rugen and Heligoland, Eidsvoll, Norway’s 1819 claim and its withdrawal, the 1916 US declaration, the Ihlen declaration and Svalbard, Eirik Raudes Land in 1931, the 1933 judgment in The Hague (12 votes to 2), Iceland’s road to the republic in 1944, the Faroes’ 1946 independence vote, Greenland’s home rule, its exit from the European Community in 1985, the 2009 Self-Government Act and its right to independence, and America’s interest from Seward in 1868 to Byrnes in 1946, Pituffik and 2025-26.

Which strange border should we explain next? Tell me in the comments.

#history #greenland #denmark #norway #iceland #faroeislands #geography #whyx

Sources (main): Permanent Court of International Justice, Legal Status of Eastern Greenland (Denmark v. Norway), judgment of 5 April 1933, Series A/B No. 53 (quotes the Treaty of Kiel, Art. IV, the 1819 papers, the 1916 US declaration and the Ihlen declaration); Zakarias Wang, “Heligoland and the Norwegian Islands in the North Atlantic”, Frodskaparrit 57 (2009), quoting Wetterstedt’s letter of 16 January 1814 after Nielsen (1886); Gilbert Goudie, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 21 (1887) on the Orkney and Shetland pledge; Act no. 473 of 12 June 2009 on Greenland Self-Government; Foreign Relations of the United States 1944 and 1947; Store norske leksikon; lex.dk / Den Store Danske (Michael Bregnsbo and others); trap.fo; Statistics Greenland. Full notes with confidence tags: research.md in the project.