Dove vivono i 56.740 abitanti della Groenlandia (2026)

How to read it

Each dot is one town or settlement where people lived on 1 January 2026, 73 in all. The colour gives its population in six classes, from grey (under 400) to purple (10,000 and more). Bigger classes are drawn with slightly bigger dots, but the dots are not to scale.

The white is the ice sheet. The beige is land without ice, which is where everyone lives.

What it shows well

One town holds a third of the country. Nuuk has 20,298 people, 36% of Greenland’s 56,740. With Sisimiut, Ilulissat, Qaqortoq and Aasiaat, the five largest towns hold about two thirds.

Almost everyone lives on the west coast. The east coast has two towns, Tasiilaq and Ittoqqortoormiit, and five villages near Tasiilaq. Together they have about 2,860 people, 5% of the country.

Most places are very small. 57 of the 73 have fewer than 400 residents. The smallest, Kangerluk on Disko Island, has 4, and Ikerasaarsuk near Upernavik has 1.

Why equal-area

The map uses Equal Earth, an equal-area projection: every country keeps its true size relative to every other, so Greenland is shown as big as it really is, a little larger than Mexico and about a quarter of the size of Brazil or Australia. It is the ordinary Equal Earth world map, turned to 42°W and zoomed in on Greenland.

Equal area has a price this far north: shapes are sheared and flattened, so Greenland looks wider and squatter than on a globe. Its area is right; its outline is not.

Where it misleads

24 people are not on the map. Statistics Greenland records them in a district but not in any particular place. They are part of the 56,740, but there is nowhere to put a dot. Localities with no residents, such as the Nerlerit Inaat airport, are left out.

The positions are OpenStreetMap’s. Statistics Greenland names each place but gives no coordinates. We matched every name to OpenStreetMap by hand where it was ambiguous: there are two Aappilattoqs, two Tasiusaqs and two Ikerasaarsuks, one in the south and one in the north.

The coastline and ice are generalised. They come from Natural Earth at world scale, so small islands and fjords are simpler than they are.

What it is made of

Population: Statistics Greenland, table BEXSTD, “Population in Localities January 1st”, 2026 (bank.stat.gl). The numbers are shown exactly as published. Statistics Greenland allows re-use, including commercial use, with the source quoted.

Locations: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Land, ocean and ice: Natural Earth, public domain.

The six size classes and their colours follow a post on r/MapPorn that inspired this map. The class breaks are the only thing we chose about the data.