Nuuk mainland, and was named Godthåb ("Good Hope"). 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. The campus of the University of Greenland, hosting Statistics Greenland, and the main holdings of the Public and National Library of
City proper offices. These questionnaires ask for the country-specific definition of urban areas, rural areas and city proper. In its glossary, the Yearbook defines "city proper" as "a locality defined according to legal/political boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government". In its data however, the United Nations Demographic Yearbook affords the individual countries considerable leeway over the definition of "city proper". The table titled "Population of capital cities and cities of 100 000 or more inhabitants" provides several country-specific definitions for "city proper" that diverge from the provided definition: These definitions are