Zdeněk Lyčka: Greenland, land of eternal snow and ice

Greenland, or the green land, as the Vikings named the island, because its southern coast is green during the summer, is an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It has an area of 2.2 million km², of which only 15% is not covered by permanent snow and ice, and has a population of 57,000. About one-sixth of them are Danes, the rest are descendants of the Inuit. The first of them came to Greenland around 2500 BC from Asia via the Canadian ice sheets. In 982, the first Europeans settled in Greenland, arriving from Iceland. The indigenous people speak Greenlandic, which is related to other North American Inuit languages and is now the country's official language and the language of instruction in schools.

The indigenous people of Greenland do not call themselves Eskimos, as the outside world sometimes does, because they find the term pejorative. The term Eskimo was introduced in the early 17th century by the Jesuit missionary Biard, who wrote in one of his reports that the Wasnebaki Indians refer to the people of the north as eskimautsik – "those who eat raw meat." The Greenlanders call themselves Inuit, meaning "people." They named their island the Land of the People, which later evolved into the current name, Kalaallit Nunaat – Land of the Greenlanders. Greenland has been self-governing since 1979 and has flown the red-and-white flag since, symbolising the sun and the continental ice sheet.

Admission to the travel lecture in the Reading Room is free.