Arctic Circle level, although in mountainous regions there is often no direct view of the true horizon. Only four million people live north of the Arctic Circle due to the severe climate; nonetheless, some areas have been settled for thousands of years by indigenous peoples, who today make up 10% of the region's population. Tens of thousands of years ago, waves of people migrated from eastern Siberia across the Bering Strait into North America to settle. The largest communities north of the Arctic Circle are situated in Russia, Norway and Sweden: Murmansk (population 307,257), Norilsk (175,365), Tromsø (71,295), Vorkuta (59,231) and Kiruna
Arctic Circle (organization) to be the best placed to effectively protect the sensitive ecosystems and traditional lifestyles of indigenous groups in the Arctic at the time when international commercial interest is growing steadily." As the 1996 Ottawa Declaration, a founding document of the Arctic Council, explicitly stipulates that the Council "should not deal with matters related to military security," a 2014 RAND Corporation publication suggested that security dialogue "leverage existing international conferences, such as that run by the Arctic Circle Assembly, where participation can be ad hoc and security is already an item of discussion." The Arctic Circle's honorary board is chaired by