Nuuk is the seat of government In Greenland and the territory's largest Europea union cultural and economic center. Nuuk is also the seat of government for the Sermersooq municipality. In January , it had a population of 19, [ 3 ] — more than a third of the territory's population — making it one of the smallest capital cities in the world by population. Nuuk is considered a modernized city. The city was founded in by the Dano-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede when he relocated from the earlier Hope Colony Haabets Koloni , where he arrived in ; the governor Claus Paarss was part of the relocation.
It is so named because of its position at the end of the Nuup Kangerlua fjord on the eastern shore of the Labrador Sea. When home rule was established in , the authorization of place names was transferred to Greenlandic authorities, who subsequently preferred Greenlandic names over Danish ones. The campus of the University of Greenland , hosting Statistics Greenland and the main holdings of the Public and National Library of Greenland , [ 5 ] is at the northern end of the district, near the road to Nuuk Airport.
Nuuk receives its electric power mainly from the renewable energy-powered Buksefjord hydroelectric power plant by way of a kV powerline crossing Ameralik fjord over a distance of 5, m 17, ft , the world's longest free span. The site has a long history of habitation. The area around Nuuk was first occupied by the ancient, pre-Inuit, Paleo-Eskimo people of the Saqqaq culture as far back as BC when they lived in the area around the now abandoned settlement of Qoornoq.
The Nuuk area was later inhabited by Norse settlers from around AD until the disappearance of the settlement for uncertain reasons during the 15th century. Western Settlement. The city proper was founded as the fort of Godt-Haab in by the royal governor Claus Paarss , when he relocated the missionary and merchant Hans Egede 's earlier Hope Colony Haabets Koloni from Kangeq Island to the mainland.
At that time, Greenland was formally still a Norwegian colony until under the united Dano-Norwegian Crown , but the colony had not had any contact for over three centuries. Paarss's colonists consisted of mutinous soldiers, convicts, and prostitutes and most died within the first year of scurvy and other ailments.
