Nuuk Nuuk Nuuk (, ; ) is the capital and largest city of Greenland. 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 also the seat of government for the Sermersooq municipality. In January 2018, it had a population of 17,796. The city was founded in 1728 by the Dano-Norwegian governor Claus Paarss when he relocated Hans Egede's earlier Hope Colony () to the
Nuuk Airport flying boat, with the aircraft using the waterways of the Nuuk Port as a landing site. In 1962 a PBY Catalina crashed near the port, killing 15 people on board. The tragedy was one of the factors leading to the decision to invest in a helicopter fleet. The Sikorsky S-61N machines—still in use in 2010—proved to be a more reliable mode of transport for the city, providing exclusive service for the Nuuk city for more than a decade—from the purchase date in 1965 until the late 1970s. Even in the later era of the fixed-wing, turboprop plane domination, the S-61N