page_title: Nuuk
section_title: Education
hierarchical_section_title: Nuuk / Economy / Education
caption_attribution_description: Ilisimatusarfik, the University of Greenland in Nuuk, Greenland.
context_page_description: Nuuk is the capital and largest city of Greenland. Nuuk is the seat of government and the country's largest cultural and economic centre. The major cities from other countries closest to the capital are Iqaluit and St. John's in Canada and Reykjavík in Iceland. Nuuk contains almost a third of Greenland's population and its tallest building. Nuuk is also the seat of government for the Sermersooq municipality. In January 2020, it had a population of 18,326.
  The city was founded in 1728 by the Dano-Norwegian governor Claus Paarss when he relocated Hans Egede's earlier Hope Colony to the mainland, and was named Godthåb. The city officially adopted its current name in 1979, although the name "Godthåb" remained in use in Danish. "Nuuk" is the Greenlandic word for "cape". It is so named because of its position at the end of the Nuup Kangerlua fjord on the eastern shore of the Labrador Sea. Its latitude, at 64°11' N, makes it the world's northernmost capital, only a few kilometres farther north than the Icelandic capital Reykjavík.
context_section_description: Nuuk has several educational institutions of higher learning. The University of Greenland (Ilisimatusarfik), the only university in Greenland, is in Nuuk. The university was founded in 1987 and expanded in 2007 with the new building, Ilimmarfik, housing departments of journalism, management and economics, language, literature and media, cultural and social history, theology and religion and social work. Nuuk is also home to the Department of Learning (Ilinniarfissuaq), the oldest educational facility in Greenland, in the old colonial part of Nuuk (Nuutoqaq: Old Nuuk). Other notable educational institutions include the Department of Nursing and Health Science, Nuuk Technical College and the Iron & Metal School.
caption: University of Greenland
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