Wilderness Landscape & Natural Heritage
Greenland National Park, established in 1974, is the largest national park on the planet, spanning approximately 375,000 square kilometers (92.7 million acres) of Arctic wilderness in northeastern Greenland. The park extends northwards from the eastern coast of Greenland almost to the northern ice cap, featuring rugged mountain ranges, immense glaciers, deep fjords, and expansive tundra. Its geography is dominated by some of the planet’s most extreme environments, including permanent ice sheets and vast ice-free zones that sustain specialized Arctic flora and fauna. The park is home to a variety of wildlife adapted to the harsh conditions, such as musk oxen, Arctic wolves, Arctic foxes, polar bears, and numerous migratory bird species. Human presence within the park is extremely limited due to its remoteness, and it has no permanent inhabitants or visitor facilities. Recreational access is primarily by scientific expeditions and limited guided tours focused on wildlife observation, glacier trekking, and Arctic mountaineering. Notable landmarks include the massive Flade Isblink ice cap, the rugged nunataks (mountain peaks protruding through the ice), and remote fjords with rich marine ecosystems. Visitors are drawn by the chance to experience an environment largely untouched by development, offering remarkable opportunities for photography, ecological research, and extreme wilderness adventure. Because of its extreme Arctic location, Greenland National Park remains one of the least visited national parks worldwide, prized for solitude, raw natural beauty, and polar ecosystem study.
