The
Greenland ice sheet is an ice sheet about 1.67 km (1.0 mi) thick on average, and almost 3.5 km (2.2 mi) at its thickest point. It is almost 2,900 kilometres (1,800 mi) long in a north–south direction, with the greatest width of 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) at a latitude of 77°N, near its northern margin. It covers 1,710,000 square kilometres (660,000 sq mi), around 80% of the surface of Greenland, and is the second largest body of ice in the world, after the East Antarctic ice sheet. It is sometimes referred to as an ice cap, or
inland ice or its Danish equivalent,
indlandsis. The acronyms GIS or GrIS are also frequently used in the scientific literature.