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Nunavut is the largest and northernmost territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, which provided this territory to the Inuit for self-government. The boundaries had been drawn in 1993. The creation of Nunavut resulted in the first major change to Canada's political map in half a century since the province of Newfoundland (now Newfoundland and Labrador) was admitted in 1949.
Nunavut comprises a major portion of Northern Canada and most of the Arctic Archipelago. Its vast territory makes it the fifth-largest country subdivision in the world, as well as North America's second-largest (after Greenland). The capital Iqaluit (formerly "Frobisher Bay"), on Baffin Island in the east, was chosen by a capital plebiscite in 1995. Other major communities include the regional centres of Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay.
Nunavut includes Ellesmere Island in the far north, the eastern and southern portions of Victoria Island in the west, and all islands in Hudson Bay, James Bay and Ungava Bay bays, including the western portion of Killiniq Island in the southeast and Akimiski Island far to the south of the rest of the territory. It is Canada's only geopolitical region that is not connected to the rest of North America via the Pan-American Highway.
Nunavut is the least densely populated major country sub-division in the world (not considering Antarctica), being even less densely populated than Denmark's Greenland. With a population of 36,858 as of the 2021 Canadian census (up from 35,944 in 2016) consisting mostly of Inuit, and a land mass almost as large as Mexico, Nunavut's land area of has a population density of .
Nunavut is also home to the world's northernmost continuously inhabited place, Alert. Eureka, a weather station on Ellesmere Island, has the lowest average annual temperature of any Canadian weather station.
The Pre-Dorset culture was succeeded by the Dorset culture about 2,800 years ago. Anthropologists and historians believe that the Dorset culture developed from the Pre-Dorset somehow.
Helluland, which Norse explorers described visiting in their Sagas of Icelanders, has been associated with Nunavut's Baffin Island. Claims of contact between the Dorset and Norse are controversial.
The Thule people, ancestors of the modern Inuit, began migrating from Alaska in the 11th century into the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. By 1300, the geographic extent of Thule settlement included most of modern Nunavut.
The migration of the Thule people coincides with the decline of the Dorset. Thule people genetically and culturally completely replaced Dorset some time after 1300.
Discussions on dividing the Northwest Territories along ethnic lines began in the 1950s, and legislation to achieve this was introduced in 1963. After its failure, a federal commission recommended against such a measure.
During the 1970s, activism increased among the Inuit, First Nations, and Innu peoples for recognition of their forced assimilation. In 1976, as part of the land claims negotiations between the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (then called the "Inuit Tapirisat of Canada") and the federal government, the parties discussed division of the Northwest Territories to provide a separate territory for the Inuit. On April 14, 1982, a plebiscite on division was held throughout the Northwest Territories. A majority of the residents voted in favour and the federal government gave a conditional agreement seven months later.
The land claims agreement was completed in September 1992 and ratified by nearly 85% of the voters in Nunavut in a referendum. On July 9, 1993, the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act and the Nunavut Act were passed by the Canadian Parliament. The transition to establish Nunavut Territory was completed on April 1, 1999. On January 18, 2024, the federal and territorial governments signed the Nunavut Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement; it gives the government of Nunavut control over the territory'
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In 2020, Nunavut imposed strict travel regulations in order to prevent an outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government barred entry to almost all non-residents. On November 6, 2020, Nunavut confirmed its first case in Sanikiluaq, having previously been the only place in North America to have had no cases of COVID-19.
Nunavut has long land borders with the Northwest Territories on the mainland and a few Arctic islands, and with Manitoba to the south of the Nunavut mainland; it also meets Saskatchewan to the southwest at a quadripoint, and has a short land border with Newfoundland and Labrador on Killiniq Island. The boundary with the Northwest Territories roughly approximates the tree line in Canada.
Nunavut shares maritime borders with the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba; these run along the shoreline of those provinces to include the entirety of the involved bays under Nunavut jurisdiction, rather than the usual arrangement of running through the middle of a body of water. With Greenland, a constituent country of the Danish Realm, it shares a primarily maritime international border that includes a short land border on Hans Island.Nunavut's highest point is Barbeau Peak () on Ellesmere Island. The population density is , one of the lowest in the world. By comparison, Greenland has approximately the same area and nearly twice the population.
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The population growth rate of Nunavut has been well above the Canadian average for several decades, mostly due to birth rates significantly higher than the Canadian average—a trend that continues. Between 2011 and 2016, Nunavut had the highest population growth rate of any Canadian province or territory, at a rate of 12.7%. The second-highest was Alberta, with a growth rate of 11.6%. Between 2016 and 2021, the population growth increased by 2.5% (the third lowest), a decrease of 10.2 percentiles from the previous census.
In his 2000 commissioned report ( italic=unset Language of Instruction Research Paper) to the Nunavut Department of Education, Ian Martin of York University said that a "long-term threat to Inuit languages from English is found everywhere, and current school language policies and practices on language are contributing to that threat" if Nunavut schools follow the Northwest Territories model. He provided a 20-year language plan to create a "fully functional bilingual society, in Inuktitut and English" by 2020.
The plan provided different models, including:
Of the 34,960 responses to the census question concerning "mother tongue" in the 2016 census, the most commonly reported languages in Nunavut were:
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In the 2016 census it was reported that 2,045 people (5.8%) living in Nunavut had no knowledge of either official language of Canada (English or French). Population by knowledge of official language, by province and territory (2006 Census) . Statistics Canada. Retrieved January 15, 2010. The 2016 census also reported that of the 30,135 Inuit in Nunavut, 90.7% could speak either Inuktitut or Inuinnaqtun.
Iqaluit hosts the annual Nunavut Mining Symposium every April, a tradeshow that showcases the many economic activities ongoing in Nunavut.
Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation, the operator of the Mary River Mine, is the territory's largest private sector employer with more than 2,600 workers and accounted for 23 per cent of Nunavut's economic activity in 2019.
The second mine in production is the Mary River Iron Ore mine on northern Baffin Island, operated by Baffinland Iron Mines, which produces high-grade iron ore for direct export. The most recent mine to open is Doris North or the Hope Bay Mine operated near Hope Bay Aerodrome by TMAC Resource Ltd. This new high grade gold mine is the first in a series of potential mines in gold occurrences all along the Hope Bay greenstone belt.
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This support comes from Nunavut feeling the effects of global warming. Nunavut and Climate Change , Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada Former Nunavut Premier Eva Aariak said in 2011, "Climate change is very much upon us. It is affecting our hunters, the animals, the thinning of the ice is a big concern, as well as erosion from permafrost melting." The region is global warming about twice as fast as the global average, according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The National Film Board (NFB) has released Animation from Cape Dorset (1973), a "collection assembles the first animated films to be made by Inuit artists at the NFB. Featured is work by Solomonie Pootoogook, Timmun Alariaq, Mathew Joanasie, and Itee Pootoogook Pilaloosie—all participants in the Kinngait (formerly Cape Dorset) Film Animation Workshop on Baffin Island."
In November 2006, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation announced the start of the Nunavut Animation Lab, offering animation training to Nunavut artists at workshops in Iqaluit, Cape Dorset and Pangnirtung. Films from the Nunavut Animation Lab include Alethea Arnaquq-Baril's 2010 digital animation short Lumaajuuq, winner of the Best Aboriginal Award at the Golden Sheaf Awards and named Best Canadian Short Drama at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.
In November 2011, the Government of Nunavut and the NFB jointly announced the launch of a DVD and online collection entitled Unikkausivut (Inuktitut: Sharing Our Stories), which will make over 100 NFB films by and about Inuit available in Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun and other Inuit languages, as well as English and French. The Government of Nunavut is distributing Unikkausivut to every school in the territory.
Hockey Nunavut was founded in 1999 and competes in the Maritime-Hockey North Junior C Championship.
Nunavut elects a single member of the House of Commons of Canada. This makes Nunavut the second largest electoral district in the world by area after Greenland. Lori Idlout of the New Democratic Party became Nunavut's MP in the 2021 election.
The members of the unicameralism Legislative Assembly of Nunavut are elected individually; there are no parties and the legislature is consensus-based. The head of government, the premier of Nunavut, is elected by and from the members of the legislative assembly. The executive council, which includes the premier and eight ministers, is also elected by the Legislative Assembly from among the Assembly members. On June 14, 2018, Joe Savikataaq was elected as the premier, after his predecessor Paul Quassa lost a non-confidence motion. Former premier Paul Okalik set up an advisory council of eleven elders, whose function it is to help incorporate "Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit" (Inuit culture and traditional knowledge, often referred to in English as "IQ") into the territory's political and governmental decisions.
Due to the territory's small population, and the fact that there are only a few hundred voters in each electoral district, the possibility of two election candidates finishing in an exact tie is significantly higher than in any Canadian province. This has actually happened twice in the five elections to date, with exact ties in Akulliq in the 2008 Nunavut general election and in Rankin Inlet South in the 2013 Nunavut general election. In such an event, Nunavut's practice is to schedule a follow-up by-election rather than choosing the winning candidate by an arbitrary method. The territory has also had numerous instances where MLAs were directly acclamation to office as the only person to register their candidacy by the deadline, as well as one instance where a follow-up by-election had to be held due to no candidates registering for the regular election in their district at all.
Owing to Nunavut's vast size, the stated goal of the territorial government has been to decentralize governance beyond the region's capital. Three regions—Kitikmeot, Kivalliq Region and Qikiqtaaluk (formerly Baffin)—are the basis for more localized administration, although they lack autonomous governments of their own.
Qiniq, a satellite network company, provides broadband Internet access to 25 communities in Nunavut. There is a lack of competition in regards to internet service providers operating in Nunavut and demand for reliable internet exceeds capacity. The Nunavut Public Library Services, the public library system serving the territory, also provides various information services to the territory.
In September 2012, Premier Aariak welcomed Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex, to Nunavut as part of the events marking the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada.
Nunavut was licensed by the NWT to use the same licence plate design in 1999 when it became a separate territory, but adopted its own plate design in March 2012 for launch in August 2012—a rectangle that prominently features the northern lights, a polar bear and an inuksuk.
Despite the restrictions, alcohol's availability leads to widespread alcohol-related crime. One estimation states some 95% of police calls are alcohol-related. Alcohol is also believed to be a contributing factor to the territory's high rates of violence, suicide, and homicide. A special task force created in 2010 to study and address the territory's increasing alcohol-related problems recommended the government ease alcohol restrictions. With prohibition shown to be highly ineffective historically, some believe these laws contribute to the territory's widespread social ills. Others are skeptical about the effectiveness of liquor sale liberalization and want to ban it completely. In 2014, Nunavut's government moved toward more legalization. In 2017, the first liquor store in 38 years opened in Iqaluit.
Nunavut has the highest smoking rate in all of Canada. More than half of its adult population smoke cigarettes, with both men and women smoking regularly. Some 90% of pregnant women are smokers, although studies have shown it has detrimental effects.
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