Canadian Arctic Archipelago

The Canadian- Arctic Archipelago is the northern islands of Canada. It is located in the north of Canada and adjacent to Greenland. Located in the Arctic Ocean archipelago has a population of just under 17,000 residents - mostly Inuit - on. Of these, approximately 11,000 live on the largest island, Baffin Iceland, and there again, for the most part ( 6,700 inhabitants) in Iqaluit.

History

The first recorded exploration of the islands by Europeans took place with the voyages of Martin Frobisher English sailor, in the late 1570'er years. After that the island belonged to British North America and the world did not come until 1880 Franklin district, which belongs as part of the Northwest Territories to Canada. Within Canada, the island world is now mainly to the territory of Nunavut and to a smaller extent to the Northwest Territories.

From the Canadian side, the Hans Island is expected to the archipelago. However, their national affiliation is between Canada and Denmark, which the autonomous Greenland foreign policy represents controversial.

Geography

The archipelago comprises more than 36,000 islands. The vast mass of the islands, however, are small and tiny islands. Only 94 of the islands are defined as larger islands, with an area of ​​more than 130 km ². The largest islands are Baffin Island, Victoria Island and Island Bank. The Queen Elizabeth Islands comprises more than 2,100 individual islands and has a total area of ​​419,061 km ². This makes it the largest group of islands within the archipelago. The Queen Elizabeth Islands are not the only group of islands within the entire archipelago. Other groups of islands in the archipelago are, for example, the Royal Geographical Society Islands, the Astronomical Society Islands or the Hecla and Fury Islands

The land area of all islands in the archipelago adds up to about 1.4245 million km ².

* NT = Northwest Territories, Nunavut NU =

See also

List of Canadian islands

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