Norse settlement of North America
viking settlement begun in the 10th century
The Norse settlement of North America, including Greenland, began in the late 10th century AD and lasted for about 500 years. Further west, the evidence is more limited. Only one Canadian settlement has been confirmed: L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. There is evidence of Norse activity in other parts of Canada, but no trace of the long-term farming colonies found in Greenland. In the present-day United States, there are no confirmed remains. Claimed US discoveries are hoaxes or mistaken identifications.
Settlements on Greenland's western coast peaked at a population of 2,000 to 3,000, sustained by pastoral farming on scattered coastal fjords and exports, mainly of walrus ivory, to Europe. For timber and iron, colonists launched expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and likely into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. L'Anse aux Meadows, dating to around 1021 AD, was capable of housing between 30 and 160 people.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Norse settlement of North America” as viking settlement begun in the 10th century. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as viking settlement begun in the 10th century. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q582948. The Library of Congress control number is sh85004249. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1021.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Norse settlement of North America” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.