The first known people to have lived in Greenland were the Inuit, who arrived from what is now Canada about 2500 BCE. As happened elsewhere, they walked across a strait that had frozen. More settlers arrived, in a few different waves, and then settlement ended in 900 BCE. For the next 400 years, Greenland was uninhabited. A new people, the Dorset, arrived in 500 BCE; they came to stay as well and indeed remained until the 1st Century CE.

The most well-known visitor to Greenland was Erik Thorvaldsson, known as Erik the Red (father of Leif Erikson) because of the color of his hair. He arrived about 982 and then, three years later, led a group of settlers back for more. It wasn't exactly green, but Erik named it that as a marketing ploy, to encourage more settlers to return with him. His gambit was moderately successful in that a fleet of 25 ships set sail; as was often the case, however, only 14 ships arrived in Greenland, the others being victims of sailing misadventure.

The Norsemen or Vikings, as Erik's people were called, settled in two parts, one on the western part of the island and the other on the eastern part. Christianity followed eventually, and Greenland had a bishop by the 1120s.

The final wave of Inuit migration came with the Thule people, who arrived from what is now Alaska. These settlers spread all over the island and are ancestors of most of the country's population.

The relative autonomy ended in 1261, when Norway claimed Greenland. Sovereignty changed again in 1380, when Denmark gained control of Norway. That is when Greenland became Danish. The melding of Denmark and Norway in the 16th Century made Greenland a part of that political entity.

The large northern island was a welcome target for European explorers, including Martin Frobisher, the Englishman who sailed around various northern climes in the 16th Century. Frobisher visited Greenland in 1578. Not long afterward, another Englishman, John Davis, sailed down the eastern coast. Today's Davis Strait is named for him. English seafaring traditions tell of an earlier expedition by John Cabot in 1497; Portuguese histories mention a similar trip a few years later.

In the early 18th Century, the missionary Hans Egede led a group of Europeans who desired to convert the Inuit to Christianity. Egede founded a settlement called Godthab in 1728. This led to a full trade monopoly, with Denmark holding the strings.

Also during this time, as more and more Europeans traveled back and forth to Greenland, the island felt the effects of such migrations in the form of plague. An outbreak of smallpox in the early 18th Century devastated the island, which had been far enough away in the 14th Century to avoid the Black Death.

The Kingdom of Denmark and Norway disappeared in 1814, after a treaty during the Napoleonic Wars. Greenland reverted to being a Danish colony.

A handful of explorers, North Pole discoverer Robert Peary among them, explored Greenland's northernmost regions in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Cartographers were then able to show that the island's northern coast did not cover the North Pole.

During World War II, German forces occupied Denmark. That was in 1940. Just one year later, the United States set up bases there. After the end of the war, then-President Harry Truman sought to purchase the whole of the island in order to solidify a U.S. military presence there. Denmark agreed to a long-term agreement allowing U.S. bases on the island but not to its sale. Truman was not the first U.S. President to seek such a deal. Andrew Jackson floated the idea as early as 1832. Secretary of State William Seward had a similar interest, after procuring Alaska from Russia in the 1860s. Other serious discussions took place in the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, but Greenland remained Danish. In fact, in 1916, the U.S. agreed to recognize Danish sovereignty over Greenland in return for the purchase of the Danish Virgin Islands.

Denmark in 1953 shed its colony status, becoming a province of Denmark. It got its own bank in 1966 and joined the European Union (EU) in 1973, when Denmark did. The process that had changed Greenland from a colony to a province generated desire for home rule, and this was achieved in 1979, when the island gained its own parliament, the Inatsisartut. Three years later, Greenland left the EU. In 1985, Greenland had its own flag.

Today, Greenland has a government of its own, but its head of state is still the ruling Danish monarch. However, Greenland has its own official language, Kalaalisut; and, in fact, the official name of the island is Kalaalit Nunaat. The capital city is Nuuk, with a population of 18,000; overall, the island has a population of 56,000.

The main industry of Kalaalit Nunaat is fishing, although farming is also prevalent. Many tourists visit every year, and Nuuk opened an international airport in 2024.

Another source of wealth in Kalaalit Nunaat is cryolite, a key mineral used in the production of aluminum.

In 2025, Greenland is again the subject of discussion, as newly elected President Donald Trump has repeated a call that he first made in 2019 for the U.S. to gain control of Kalaalit Nunaat.