Viking Arctic regions. Artwork of the region of the North Atlantic and Arctic colonised by the Vikings (Norsemen). The Arctic Circle passes just north of Iceland (upper right). The areas of greenery show where the Vikings were able to establish settlements as they spread from the coasts of Scandinavia (top right) to the British Isles, Iceland, southern Greenland and north-eastern North America, which they named Vinland. It is thought Vikings reached North America as early as the 10th century. The Greenland settlement lasted from the 10th to the 15th centuries. At upper left, icebergs from Greenland's western glaciers are drifting southwards to the open Atlantic.