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Greenland rarely draws global attention. But as ice melts and great powers inch closer, the world’s largest island has become a strategic prize — one that caught President Donald Trump’s eye long before most Americans were paying attention.
A semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, Greenland is home to a key U.S. military base and has become increasingly important to global security and trade as melting ice opens new shipping lanes and access to natural resources.
That shift underscores the serious geopolitical calculation behind Trump’s interest in the island’s location, military value and the rapidly changing Arctic.
TRUMP’S PUSH TO ACQUIRE GREENLAND SPARKS INTERNATIONAL MEDIA FRENZY ON REMOTE ISLAND
Residents in Greenland, the largest island in the world, have expressed concern about President Donald Trump’s renewed interest in seizing the territory. (Julia Wäschenbach/picture alliance/Getty Images)
Greenland is divided into five municipalities, with most of its roughly 56,000 residents living in small coastal towns, leaving the island’s vast interior largely uninhabited. Put another way, Greenland has roughly one person for every 1,000 soccer fields of land.
Greenland’s sparse population is largely a product of its geography. Roughly 80% of the island is covered by an ice sheet formed about 3 million years ago, leaving vast areas of the territory uninhabitable.
Despite its small population, Greenland occupies a landmass comparable to global powers. By land area, it ranks among the world’s largest territories — a scale that has drawn attention from countries such as the United States, Russia and China as competition in the Arctic intensifies. It is nearly the size of Alaska and Texas combined.
Greenland’s location off Canada’s northeastern coast places it at the heart of Arctic defense planning. The U.S. has maintained a military outpost in northwestern Greenland since 1953 at the Pituffik Space…
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