Nuuk

About Nuuk

Nuuk is Greenland's capital and largest town at 19,000 residents, on the mouth of a massive fjord system on the southwest coast. Expedition ships tender passengers to a compact downtown with the Greenland National Museum, the colorful wooden houses of the old colonial harbor, and the Katuaq cultural center. Fjord-cruising excursions run up the 100-mile Nuup Kangerlua to see calving glaciers. Summer temperatures rarely exceed 50 °F.

• Nuuk is the world's northernmost capital at latitude 64°11' N — sitting a few kilometers farther north than even Reykjavik, Iceland.
• The city is home to over 20,000 people — more than a third of Greenland's entire population — making it one of the smallest capital cities in the world by total population.
• Nuuk was founded in 1728 by Danish-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede, who relocated a colony to an existing Inuit settlement called Nûk, meaning 'cape' in Greenlandic.
• The city was called Godthåb ('Good Hope') until home rule was established in 1979, after which Greenlandic place names were officially reinstated and the Inuit name Nuuk came back into standard use.
• Nuuk sits at the end of Nuup Kangerlua fjord on the Labrador Sea, surrounded by dramatic landscapes that include nearby muskox herds and some of the most spectacular aurora borealis viewing in the world.