Nuuk country's native population. As the capital of Greenland, Nuuk is the administrative centre of the country, containing all of the important government buildings and institutions. The public sector bodies are also the town's largest employer. As of December 2015, the mayor of Nuuk is Asii Chemnitz Narup. She is a member of the Inuit Ataqatigiit party. Greenland's Self Government Parliament, the Inatsisartut, is in Nuuk. It has 31 seats and its members are elected by popular vote on the basis of proportional representation to serve four-year terms. All of Greenland's major political parties have their headquarters in Nuuk, including the
Nuuk occupied by the Dorset culture around the former settlement of Kangeq but they disappeared from the Nuuk district before AD 1000. The Nuuk area was later inhabited by Viking explorers in the 10th century (Western Settlement), and shortly thereafter by Inuit peoples. Inuit and Norsemen both lived with little interaction in this area from about 1000 until the disappearance of the Norse settlement for uncertain reasons during the 15th century. The city proper was founded as the fort of Godt-Haab in 1728 by the royal governor Claus Paarss, when he relocated the missionary and merchant Hans Egede's earlier Hope Colony