Nuuk is populated today by both Inuit and Danes. Over a third of Greenland's total population lives in the Nuuk Greater Metropolitan area. An article examining indigenous influences on cities worldwide suggested, Nuuk is located at approximately at the mouth of Nuup Kangerlua (formerly Baal's River), some from the shores of the Labrador Sea on the southwestern coast of Greenland, and about south of the Arctic Circle. Initially, the fjord flows to the northwest, to then turn southwest at , splitting into three arms in its lower run, with three big islands in between the arms: Sermitsiaq Island, Qeqertarsuaq Island, and
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