Big, cold--and free.

The thing about being from Greenland, says Susan Gudmundsdottir Johnsen, is that most people have no clue where it is. "I have to explain: 'Here you have a map. Here's Europe. The big white thing is Greenland,'" she says. But this country with 58,000 people and only two traffic lights is now securing its place in the world. In June, it began a new era of self-rule with the goal of eventual independence from Denmark--its ruler since 1721, when Danes established a colony there. Now, Greenland's government gets to call itself by its Inuit name, Naalakkersuisut. These are uncertain times in Greenland, where unemployment is around 9 percent and global warming is melting some of the ice cap that covers 80 percent of the country's 840,000 square miles. But self-rule is giving many Greenlanders a new sense of pride. Says Peter Lovstrom, 28, who works in the national art museum in Nuuk, Greenland's capital., "I feel a bit more Greenlandic now."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]