Iceland and Greenland are located at high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere and face each other across the sea. Although Iceland is considered one of the five Nordic countries while Greenland belongs to North America, both were once colonies of Vikings and played an important role in the Viking Age. The Viking civilization lived from prosperity to decline between 8 AD and 14 AD on these two islands. It is very possible to find out the reasons for the ups and downs of the Vikings by studying the histories of the development of Iceland and Greenland. Based on the previous purpose, this article will present the stories of the beginnings and ends of the Viking civilization in both Iceland and Greenland. . Then we will try to discover the reasons for the differences in the final results by comparing and contrasting the ways in which the Vikings lived. These ways are divided into four aspects: politics, economics, culture and diplomacy. The settlement of the Vikings in Iceland and Greenland was an important reflection of the Viking expansion and caused the Viking civilization to spread across these two islands. The Vikings were people from Scandinavia. For many reasons, such as Harald Fairhair's authoritarian policies (Paine, 2013), geographical features that lack land for agriculture but have abundant trees for shipbuilding, the Vikings were forced to expand into the sea. The two places that provided lands to the Vikings undoubtedly provided them with a better chance of survival. As Jared Diamond (2005) stated, “when immigrants from overseas colonize a new homeland, the lifestyle they establish usually incorporates characteristics of the lifestyle they practiced in their homeland”; since in which Viking settled in...... middle of paper...... conventions; and communicating with different cultures with an open mind are significant ways for the sustainable development of a civilization ).The Prelude and the Viking Escapes. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (pp.188-220). How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (pp.221-257). New York: Penguine Group.Diamond, Jared (2005). The End of Nordic Greenland Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (pp .258-286).New York: Penguine Group.Paine, Lincoln (2013). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Yu, Jingyi (2007). 冰岛的初署时代：早期社会文化探究. (Early Iceland: Its Society and Culture). Master's thesis in 2007 from East China Normal University. Extracted from the CNKI database.