Kaffeklubben Island or Coffee Club Island ( da, Kaffeklubben Ø; kl, Inuit Qeqertaat) is an

uninhabited island A desert island, deserted island, or uninhabited island, is an island, islet or atoll that is not permanently populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are often depicted in films or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereotype ...

lying off the northern tip of

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...

. It contains the northernmost undisputed point of land on Earth.

Discovery

The first recorded sighting of Kaffeklubben Island was made by American explorer Robert Peary in 1900; however, the island was not visited until 1921. When the

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

explorer

Lauge Koch Lauge Koch (5 July 1892 – 5 June 1964) was a Danish geologist and Arctic explorer. Biography Lauge Koch was born in 1892 to Karl and Elisabeth Koch. His development as a scientist was greatly influenced by his father's second cousin Johan P ...

set foot on the island, it received its name after the coffee club in the

University of Copenhagen Geological Museum The Geological Museum was a geology museum on Øster Voldgade, at the northeast corner of the University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Like the botanical garden, the museum was part of the wider array of centers belongin ...

. In 1969, a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

team calculated that its northernmost tip is farther north than

Cape Morris Jesup Cape Morris Jesup ( da, Kap Morris Jesup) is a headland in Peary Land, Greenland. Geography Cape Morris Jesup is the northernmost point of mainland Greenland. It is from the geographic North Pole. It is located in Johannes V. Jensen Land, abo ...

, the northernmost point of mainland Greenland, thus claiming its record as the most northerly point on land. Since its record as the northernmost point of land was established, several

gravel bank A bar in a river is an elevated region of sediment (such as sand or gravel) that has been deposition (geology), deposited by the flow. Types of bars include mid-channel bars (also called braid bars and common in braided rivers), point bars (c ...

s have been discovered in the sea to the north of the island, such as

Oodaaq Oodaaq or Oodap Qeqertaa is a bank of gravel and silt northeast of Greenland that has been considered by some to be the northernmost point of land on Earth, though a number of other places have also been given that title since its discovery. I ...

83-42 83-42 is a rocky islet in the Arctic Ocean which may be the northernmost permanent point of land on Earth. It is also sometimes referred to as Eklipse 0, or Schmitt’s Island, after its discoverer, Dennis Schmitt. It measures and in height, ...

, and

ATOW1996 ATOW1996 is one of the northernmost documented points of land on Earth. It is a small island about long and one metre high, located several miles north of Cape Morris Jesup in northern Greenland at . It was discovered by and named after the (A ...

; however, there is debate as to whether such gravel banks should be considered for the record since they rarely are permanent, being swallowed regularly by the moving ice sheets, being shifted in tides, or becoming submerged in the ocean.

Geography

Kaffeklubben Island is from the geographic

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...

. The island lies off

Cape James Hill Cape James Hill ( da, Kap James Hill) is a headland in the Wandel Sea, Arctic Ocean, northeast Greenland. The cape was named by Robert Peary after James J. Hill, one of the members of the Peary Arctic Club in New York. Geography Cape James Hill ...

, northwest of

Bliss Bay Bliss Bay ( da, Bliss Bugt) is a bay in the Wandel Sea, Northern Greenland. The area of the bay is uninhabited. Administratively Bliss Bay and its surroundings belong to the Northeast Greenland National Park. Bliss Bay is clogged by fast ice year ...

, approximately east of

, a little east of a central point along the northern coast of Greenland. Its most northerly point is 4.4 km north of that of Cape Morris Jesup. It is approximately long, and approximately across at its widest point. The highest point is approximately above sea level.

Vegetation

Despite the harsh environment, vegetation grows on Kaffeklubben island, including various mosses, liverworts, lichens, and the

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s: ''

Saxifraga oppositifolia ''Saxifraga oppositifolia'', the purple saxifrage or purple mountain saxifrage, is a species of plant that is very common in the high Arctic and also some high mountainous areas further south, including northern Britain, the Alps and the Rocky ...

'' (purple saxifrage) and ''

Papaver radicatum ''Papaver radicatum'' is a species of poppy known by the common names Arctic poppy, rooted poppy, and yellow poppy. It is a flowering plant in the family Papaveraceae. Distribution ''Papaver radicatum'' is circumpolar in distribution and grows i ...

'' (arctic poppy).

References

{{reflist Extreme points of Earth Uninhabited islands of Greenland

Discovery

Geography

Vegetation

See also

References