Qinngua Valley, also called Qinnquadalen, Kanginsap Qinngua and Paradisdalen, is a valley in

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 ...

, about from the nearest settlement of

Tasiusaq, Kujalleq Tasiusaq is a settlement in the Kujalleq municipality in southern Greenland, founded in 1933. It is located at the Tasermiut Fjord ( da, Ketils Fjord), east of Nanortalik. Its population was 53 in 2020. In the Greenlandic language, the name of ...

. The valley has the only natural forest in Greenland and is about long, running roughly north to south and terminating at Tasersuag Lake. The lake drains into

Tasermiut Fjord Tasermiut Fjord is a 70-kilometre-long fjord in southwestern Greenland. Administratively it is part of the Kujalleq municipality. Nanortalik Island is located near the mouth of the fjord. Tasermiut Fjord has some of the very few growths of d ...

. Mountains rise as much as on either side of the narrow valley. The valley is situated about from the sea and protected from the cold winds coming off the interior glaciers of Greenland. In total, over 300 species of plants grow in the valley. The forest in Qinngua Valley is a thicket consisting mainly of downy birch (''

Betula pubescens ''Betula pubescens'' (syn. ''Betula alba''), commonly known as downy birch and also as moor birch, white birch, European white birch or hairy birch, is a species of deciduous tree, native and abundant throughout northern Europe and northern Asia ...

'') and gray-leaf willow (''

Salix glauca ''Salix glauca'' is a species of flowering plant in the willow family known by the common names gray willow, grayleaf willow, white willow, and glaucous willow. It is native to North America, where it occurs throughout much of Alaska, northern ...

''), growing up to tall. Growing sometimes to tree height is the Greenland mountain ash ('' Sorbus groenlandica''), which is usually a shrub. Green alder ('' Alnus crispa'') is also found in the valley. It is possible that other forests of this type once existed in Greenland but were cleared by early settlers for firewood or building material. The valley was declared a protected natural area in 1930. Although nearly all of ice-free Greenland has an

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mou ...

climate (ET in the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

), Qinngua Valley may have a

sub-arctic The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of humid continental regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and the Cairngorms. Generally, ...

Dfc climate.

References

{{coord, 60.29, -44.50, dim:20000_region:GL, display=title Valleys of Greenland Flora of Greenland Forests of Denmark Forests of North America