King Christian X Land

Not to be confused with King Christian IX Land.

King Christian X Land Kunngi Kristumi X Nuna (Greenlandic) Kong Christian X Land (Danish)
Region
Landscape of King Christian X Land in Wollaston Foreland.
Location of King Christian X Land
Coordinates: 74.0°N 28.1°W / 74.0; -28.1
Sovereign state	Kingdom of Denmark
Autonomous Territory	Greenland
Administrative division	Northeast Greenland National Park
Named for	King Christian X
Elevation	1,000 m (3,000 ft)

King Christian X Land (Greenlandic: Kunngi Kristumi X Nuna; Danish: Kong Christian X Land) is an area of northeastern Greenland.[1]

History

Christian X (r. 1912–1947) who the area is named after

This area was named after King Christian X of Denmark and Iceland (r. 1912–1947). At the time of the Three-year Expedition to East Greenland, it is reported that, when Lauge Koch was planning to fly over the region in 1932, he said:

Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible and then we can call the whole thing King Christian X Land.[2]

The name 'King Christian X Land' was first used on the 1932 1:1 million scale Danish Geodesic Institute map.[2] At that time the area was occupied by Norway and was renamed 'Erik the Red's Land' (Eirik Raudes Land) but the Permanent Court of International Justice ruled against Norway in 1933 and the country subsequently abandoned its claims.[3]

Myggbukta was a Norwegian radio and weather station that operated in the coast intermittently during the 20th century.[4]

Geography

King Christian X Land stretches above the Arctic Circle between the Scoresby Sound at 70°N and the Bessel Fjord at 76°N. It is bordered by King Christian IX Land on the south, King Frederik VIII Land to the north, and the Greenland Ice Sheet to the west. All its territory is included in the large Northeast Greenland National Park zone.[5]

It includes the Stauning Alps, Scoresby Land, as well as the vast glacier and fjord expanses of northeastern Greenland between the ice sheet area west of the Kaiser Franz Joseph Fjord and the eastern end of Wollaston Foreland in the shore of the Greenland Sea.[1]

The area is uninhabited except for Daneborg station, Zackenberg research facility located near the Zackenberg mountain.[6] and the Mestersvig military outpost.

Image gallery

Limits of King Christian X Land.

Norwegian-occupied Erik the Red's Land (1931-1933)

Map of Northeastern Greenland.

References

1. "Kong Christian X Land". Mapcarta. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
2. "Catalogue of place names in northern East Greenland". Geological Survey of Denmark. Archived from the original on 13 May 2020. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
3. Legal Status of Eastern Greenland Archived 2011-05-11 at the Wayback Machine, PCIJ Series A/B No. 53 (1933)
4. Spencer Apollonio, Lands That Hold One Spellbound: A Story of East Greenland, 2008 p. 187
5. Greenland Map
6. Zackenberg Research Station