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Nuuk (Danish/Norwegian: Godthåb, which translates to Good Hope in English) is the capital of the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland.
The city was founded in 1728 by the Norwegian missionary Hans Egede, and given the name Godthåb. (At this time Greenland was a Norwegian colony under the Crown).
However, the site has a long history of inhabitation by Inuit peoples (Eskimo), by Viking explorers in the 10th century and thereafter, and by Inuits and Danes today. It is located at the mouth of the Godthåbsfjorden inlet on the west coast of Greenland, about 150 miles (240 km) south of the Arctic Circle, and has a population of 12,217.
The city is known as Godthåb to its Danish residents, although since home rule was enacted in 1979, the official name of the city is its Greenlandic name of Nuuk. It is the seat of government for the commune of Nuuk, which encompasses about 39,000 square miles (100,000 km²) of Greenland and has more than 15,000 residents.
Nuuk is home to the University of Greenland (Ilisimatusarfik).
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