Nuuk

Nuuk (Greenlandic pronunciation: [nuːk] ^ⓘ; Danish: Godthåb) is the capital and most populous city of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. It is the seat of the Sermersooq municipality and the government of Greenland and is the territory's largest cultural and economic center. In January 2025, it had a population of 20,113—more than a third of the territory's population—making it one of the smallest capital cities in the world by population.

The city was founded in 1728 by the Danish-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede when he relocated from the earlier Hope Colony (Haabets Koloni), where he had arrived in 1721; the governor Claus Paarss was part of the relocation. The new colony was placed at the Inuit settlement of Nûk and named Godthaab ('good hope'). Nuuk is the Greenlandic word for 'cape' and is commonly found in Greenlandic place names. It is so named because of its position at the end of the Nuup Kangerlua fjord on the Labrador Sea's eastern shore. Its latitude, at 64°11' N, makes it the world's northernmost capital, a few kilometres farther north than Reykjavík. When home rule was established in 1979, the authorization of place names was transferred to Greenlandic authorities, who preferred Greenlandic names to Danish ones. The name Godthåb mostly went out of use over the next two decades.