| Nordfjord | |
|---|---|
View of the head of the Nordfjord with the calving end of the Waltershausen Glacier | |
  Nordfjord Location within Greenland | |
| Location | Arctic (SE Greenland) |
| Coordinates | 73°40′N24°15′W / 73.667°N 24.250°W Coordinates: 73°40′N24°15′W / 73.667°N 24.250°W |
| Ocean/sea sources | Kaiser Franz Joseph Fjord Greenland Sea |
| Basin countries | Greenland |
| Max. length | 60 kilometres (37 mi) |
| Max. width | 13.3 kilometres (8.3 mi) |
| Average depth | 49 metres (161 ft) |
Nordfjord is a fjord in the NE Greenland National Park area, East Greenland.
Geologically, a fjord or fiord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. There are many fjords on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Kamchatka, the Kerguelen Islands, New Zealand, Norway, Novaya Zemlya, Labrador, Nunavut, Newfoundland, Quebec, Scotland, South Georgia Island, and Washington state. Norway's coastline is estimated at 29,000 kilometres (18,000 mi) with nearly 1,200 fjords, but only 2,500 kilometres (1,600 mi) when fjords are excluded.
Northeast Greenland National Park is the world's largest national park and the 9th largest protected land area. Established in 1974 and expanded to its present size in 1988, it protects 972,000 km2 (375,000 sq mi) of the interior and northeastern coast of Greenland and is bigger than all but twenty-nine countries in the world. It was the first national park to be created in the Kingdom of Denmark and remains Greenland's only national park.
Greenland is an autonomous constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for more than a millennium. The majority of its residents are Inuit, whose ancestors began migrating from the Canadian mainland in the 13th century, gradually settling across the island.
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The fjord was named in 1899 by Swedish Arctic explorer A.G. Nathorst during the expedition he led to Greenland. In 1931 a scientific station known as Nordfjordhuset was built on the western shore of the fjord at the time of the 1931–34 Treårsekspeditionen . [1]
Dr Alfred Gabriel Nathorst HFRSE FLS FGS was a Swedish Arctic explorer, geologist and palaeobotanist.
