Greenland is the world’s largest island, stretching across 836,000 square miles, yet only 56,699 people live there as of October 2025. That gives it a population density of roughly 0.07 people per square mile, making it the least densely populated territory on Earth. The reasons come down to an extreme climate that limits where people can live, infrastructure that makes growth extraordinarily expensive, and a steady flow of residents leaving for Denmark.
Most of the Island Is Uninhabitable
About 80% of Greenland is covered by a permanent ice sheet up to two miles thick. The remaining ice-free land is concentrated along the coasts, and even there, conditions are harsh. Permafrost underlies much of the terrain, and winter temperatures in northern areas regularly drop below minus 30°F. This means the actual livable area of Greenland is a narrow coastal fringe, roughly the size of a modest European country, broken up by fjords, mountains, and glaciers into isolated pockets.
The climate doesn’t just limit where people can settle. It limits what they can do for a living. Agriculture is confined to a handful of southern valleys where sheep farming and small-scale vegetable growing are possible during short summers. Historically, Greenland’s Inuit population survived through hunting and fishing, activities that supported small, dispersed communities rather than large concentrated ones. When Danish-Norwegian colonialism began in 1721, the estimated Inuit population of West Greenland was around 8,000, and that number actually fell to about 6,000 by the late 18th century due to imported diseases like smallpox.
Building Anything Is Expensive and Difficult
Permafrost creates constant problems for construction. As the ground thaws and refreezes, it shifts, causing buildings to tilt, walls to crack, and window panes to shatter. In the northern town of Qaanaaq, most houses sit on sedimentary deposits that are especially vulnerable to this kind of movement. Homeowners there regularly spend money repairing damage from ground shifting, and when problems get complicated enough, specialists have to be flown in from outside the country at enormous cost.
Roads face similar challenges. It’s common for roads to sink as permafrost degrades beneath them, and municipalities often resort to layering more asphalt on top. Some roads now sit on more than a meter of accumulated asphalt from repeated repairs. Municipal planners increasingly try to build on exposed bedrock whenever possible, but that limits where new housing can go. The practical result is that expanding towns or building new ones requires far more money and engineering than in temperate climates, which puts a natural ceiling on how many people the island can support with its current resources.
No Roads Connect Any Two Towns
One of the most striking facts about Greenland is that no two communities are connected by road. The entire country has roughly 93 miles of roads total, and only about 56 of those miles are paved. All of those roads exist within individual towns, not between them.
To get from one town to another, Greenlanders travel by sea or air. In summer, passenger boats navigate the 27,000-mile coastline once enough ice has melted. Air Greenland, the main carrier, operates small planes seating fewer than 40 passengers, and helicopters serve some routes. In winter, more than 2,000 registered snowmobiles and traditional dog sleds fill the gap. This isolation means each community must be largely self-sufficient in terms of services, which makes it hard for any single town to grow very large, and makes the cost of living high enough to discourage newcomers.
Nuuk Dominates, Settlements Shrink
The population that does live in Greenland is increasingly concentrated in one place. Nuuk, the capital, is home to 19,903 people, or 35.2% of the entire country. Meanwhile, the smallest settlements across Greenland hold only about 3,312 people combined. Young people in particular are drawn to Nuuk for education and jobs, and the smaller coastal settlements have been slowly losing residents for decades. This internal migration hollows out rural Greenland without actually growing the national population, since many people who move to Nuuk eventually move further, to Denmark.
More People Leave Than Arrive
Greenland has experienced net emigration for three decades. Over the past 30 years, 80,710 people left Greenland while only 69,762 moved in, a net loss of nearly 11,000 people, or about 365 per year on average. Most of those emigrants go to Denmark, which governed Greenland as a colony until 1953 and still maintains close political and economic ties. Greenlanders hold Danish citizenship and can move freely to Denmark, where universities, hospitals, and job markets are far larger.
Teenagers leaving for boarding school stays in Denmark are a notable part of this pattern, and emigration statistics show a clear spike among 16 to 18 year olds. Most of those students do return within one to three years. But for older young adults, the pull of Danish cities is stronger. Virtually no one over 70 emigrates, meaning the people who leave are disproportionately working-age adults, exactly the demographic a small population can least afford to lose.
Fertility Has Dropped Below Replacement
Even setting aside emigration, Greenland’s population would struggle to grow on its own. The total fertility rate was 1.8 children per woman in 2023, below the 2.1 replacement level needed for a population to sustain itself without immigration. This is a dramatic shift from the mid-20th century, when Greenland’s birth rates were much higher and the population grew rapidly from around 20,000 in the 1940s to over 55,000 by the 1990s. That growth has now stalled. With fewer births and continued emigration, the population has hovered between 55,000 and 57,000 for roughly 30 years.
A Population Shaped by Geography
Greenland’s low population isn’t the result of any single factor. The ice sheet eliminates most of the island from consideration. Permafrost makes building on the remaining land slow and costly. The lack of connecting roads keeps communities small and isolated. A below-replacement birth rate means natural growth has stopped, and steady emigration to Denmark drains working-age residents every year. The result is a territory the size of Western Europe with fewer people than a mid-sized American suburb, and no obvious force that would change that equation anytime soon.