Which Country Is Greener Iceland or Greenland?

Which country is greener, Iceland or Greenland. It seems like an odd question, since one sounds like it should be all ice and the other sounds like it should be all green. Of course, names aren't always what they seem and you should never judge a book by its cover. In fact, the answer to whether Iceland or Greenland is a greener country may surprise you greatly.

To know whether Iceland or Greenland is a greener country, you need to define greener. If you take the word “greener” to mean warmer climates and shorter winters so more things can grow, then it’s a funny fact to note that Iceland is quite a bit greener than Greenland. This is a long-standing joke, but there is absolute truth behind it. What aren’t necessarily true are the rumors and legends surrounding why the names of the two countries were chosen.

Stories About the Names Iceland and Greenland

Once you've found out which country is greener out of Iceland or Greenland, you may wonder why the countries are named the way they are. A popular explanation is that the two countries were originally named the other way around, and traded names in order to fool invaders – or tourists, or immigrants – and keep them out of the country.

Of course, assuming Iceland was trying to fend off visitors, the legend doesn’t explain how Greenland felt about getting even more of them now that it had the more marketable name. 

Another explanation pins Iceland’s name on glaciers, and Greenland’s name on people with green skin from exposure to ocean waters. These are actually ancient legends. Neither are true, but both have been circulated for centuries.

Truth About Where the Names Came From

Old wives’ tales aside, the story behind the two countries’ names is fairly interesting.

Iceland

Iceland was visited by Vikings around the year 850; one of the Viking explorers named the land with the Viking word for “snow land” due to snow that fell from the mountain tops. 

A few visitors, and a few names, later, Iceland was visited again by a Norwegian Viking, who gave the country its current name because of sea ice he could see off in the distance when exploring the mountain tops. The truth is that this particular visitor wasn’t very fond of the land – he found it lonely and uninviting – and so the name was chosen in a somewhat derogatory manner. Things changed over time, of course. 

Greenland

As for Greenland, the answer is a bit simpler: an Icelandic citizen banished from the country for acts of violence during a small conflict spent three years exploring – he wasn’t allowed to return to the country, and had nothing else to do, and so he wandered west.

Eventually, this explorer (known as Erik the Red) stumbled across what we now know as Greenland. The name he chose was, in fact, Greenland, and this was something of a marketing ploy: he picked it partially to encourage people from Iceland to come and settle it with him. However, he wasn’t completely misleading them. There are actually areas in Greenland that aren’t ice and that are, in fact, green, warm, and inhabitable.