Page "Viking" Paragraph 42

Geographically, a Viking Age may be assigned not only to Scandinavian lands ( modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden ), but also to territories under North Germanic dominance, mainly the Danelaw, including Scandinavian York, the administrative centre of the remains of the Kingdom of Northumbria, parts of Mercia, and East Anglia.

Viking navigators opened the road to new lands to the north, west and east, resulting in the foundation of independent settlements in the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands ; Iceland ; Greenland ; and L ' Anse aux Meadows, a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland, circa 1000 A. D.

Many of these lands, specifically Greenland and Iceland, may have been originally discovered by sailors blown off course.

They also may well have been deliberately sought out, perhaps on the basis of the accounts of sailors who had seen land in the distance.

The Greenland settlement eventually died out, possibly due to climate change.

Vikings also explored and settled in territories in Slavic-dominated areas of Eastern Europe, particularly the Kievan Rus.

By 950 AD these settlements were largely Slavicised.