Capitol Centre

Nuuk is the capital and largest city of Greenland and the municipality of Sermersooq. It is the seat of government and the country's largest cultural and economic centre. The major cities 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 the seat of government for the Sermersooq municipality. In January 2016, it had a population of 17,316.The present 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 Kalaallisut 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°10' N, makes it the world's northernmost capital, only a few kilometres farther north than the Icelandic capital Reykjavík. Since 2009, the city bus service Nuup Bussii provides city transport services in Nuuk for the new Sermersooq municipality, linking the town centre with the outlying districts and neighborhoods of Nuussuaq, Qinngorput, as well as Qernertunnguit in Quassussuup Tungaa. In 2012 the buses transported more than 2 million passengers around the city of Nuuk. The campus of the University of Greenland, hosting Statistics Greenland, and the main holdings of the Public and National Library of Greenland is at the northern end of the district, near the road to the Nuuk Airport.Nuuk receives its electric power mainly from the renewable energy-powered Buksefjord hydroelectric power plant by way of a 132 kV powerline crossing Ameralik fjord over a distance of 5,376 m , the world's longest free span.
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