{{Short description|Area in North America}} {{other uses}} {{Norse colonization of North America}}[[File:Skálholt map 1690 copy (cropped).png|alt=map with Vinland, Greenland, and other areas shown as a parts of a large continent bordering the western and northern edges of the Atlantic, full text at link |thumb|upright=1.3|The Skálholt Map showing Latinized Norse placenames in the North Atlantic:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=Gordon |title=Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth |date=25 March 2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-260598-6 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Norse_America/RIskEAAAQBAJ |language=en |at=fig. 3.1}}</ref>
{{bulleted list | ''Iotun-heimar'' (Jötunheimr) | ''Riseland'' (Land of the Risi) | ''Grönlandia'' (Greenland) | ''Helleland'' (Helluland) | Markland | ''Skrælinge Land'' (Land of the Skræling) | ''Promontorium Winlandiæ'' (Promontory of Vinland) }} ]] '''Markland''' ({{IPA|non|ˈmɑrkˌlɑnd}}) is the name given to one of three lands on North America's Atlantic shore discovered by Leif Eriksson around 1000 AD. It was located south of Helluland and north of Vinland.
Although it was never recorded to be settled by Norsemen, there were probably a number of later expeditions from Greenland to gather timber.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/markland/sagas.html |title=The Vinland sagas |work=National Museum of Natural History |publisher=Arctic Studies Center |access-date=2010-05-26 |archive-date=2011-06-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606232314/http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/markland/sagas.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> A 1347 Icelandic document records that a ship went off course and ended up in Iceland in the process of returning from Markland, without further specifying where Markland was.<ref>{{cite book |last=Seaver |first=Kristen A. |title=The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North America, Ca. A.D. 1000–1500 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5qonlDkZW3MC&pg=PA28 |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=1996 |page=28 |isbn= 0-8047-3161-6}}</ref>
==Location== Markland has been suggested to have been part of the Labrador coast in Canada, as Labrador lies in the heavily forested taiga region of the Northern Hemisphere north of the location of Vinland on the island of Newfoundland. The area of Cape Porcupine has been suggested as a possible candidate for the site.<ref name="Wernick">{{cite book|last1=Wernick|first1=Robert|title=The Vikings|date=1979|publisher=Time-Life Books|isbn=0-8094-2709-5|location=Alexandria, VA|pages=150}}</ref> The climate and the vegetation in this region may have changed significantly since the sagas were conceived, owing to the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age.
The particular part of the Labrador coast is difficult to pinpoint, as Helluland has been placed everywhere from Baffin Island to the northern Labrador coast beyond Groswater Bay<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/vikings.html |title=Where in North America did the Vikings Settle? |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090525024601/http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/vikings.html |archive-date=May 25, 2009 |last=Chapman |first=Paul H. |work=The Ensign Message}}</ref> to the southern Labrador Coast.
==Sagas== The ''Saga of the Greenlanders'' tells that Leif Eriksson set out in 1002 or 1003 to follow the route that was first described by Bjarni Herjólfsson. The first land that Eriksson went to was covered with flat rocks (Old Norse: ''hella'') and so he called it ''Helluland'' ("Land of the Flat Stones)". Next, Eriksson came to a land that was flat and wooded, with white sandy beaches, which he called ''Markland'' ("Forest Land"). Eriksson's crew cut down trees and took them to Greenland because Greenland has only one small forest and normally relies on driftwood or imports for lumber. The ''Saga of the Greenlanders'' also tells of 160 men and women who settled in Markland for winter protection led by Thorfinn Karlsefni (''Þorfinnr Karlsefni Þórðarson''), c. 1010.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kraus |first1=Michael |last2=Joyce |first2=Davis D. |title=The Writing of American History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rPQSU37xB74C |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |date=January 1, 1990 |pages=445 |isbn=0-8061-2234-X}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Sturlason |first=Snorre |author-link=Snorre Sturlason |title=Heimskringla |year=1230}}</ref>
The ''Saga of Erik the Red'' indicates that Markland is south of Helluland, north of Vinland off ''Kjalarnes'', northwest of an island called Bjarney, and with a country that Karlsefni thinks may be Hvítramannaland somewhere opposite its coast.
== Milanese record == {{Main|Galvano Fiamma#Writings}} The only known mention of Markland in the Middle Ages outside of the Nordic area occurs in a chronicle written by the Milanese friar Galvaneus Fiamma in the first half of the 14th century. This is the only known mention of the New World before Columbus's voyage in 1492 outside of Northern Europe.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Chiesa|first=Paolo|date=2021-05-04|title=Marckalada: The First Mention of America in the Mediterranean Area (c. 1340)|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00822884.2021.1943792|journal=Terrae Incognitae|language=en|volume=53|issue=2|pages=88–106|doi=10.1080/00822884.2021.1943792|hdl=2434/860960 |s2cid=236457428 |issn=0082-2884|hdl-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|date=2021-09-25|title=A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas|newspaper=The Economist|url=https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/09/25/a-monk-in-14th-century-italy-wrote-about-the-americas|access-date=2021-11-10|issn=0013-0613}}</ref>
==See also== * Vikings * Norse colonization of the Americas
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/markland/archeo.html Markland and Helluland Archaeology]
{{coord missing|Newfoundland and Labrador}}{{Germanic peoples}}
Category:Saga locations Category:Viking Age in Canada Category:Labrador Category:2nd millennium in North America