Narsarmijit,The name is from the local dialect of Greenlandic. The standard Kalaallisut name Narsaq Kujalleq was used briefly. Their pre-1973 spellings were Narsamiit and Narssak Kujatdlek or Narsak. In both dialects, the name means "Dwellers from the Plains".Jensen, Einar Lund & al. Monographs on Greenland: Man & Society: Cultural Encounters at Cape Farewell: The East Greenland Immigrants and the German Moravian Mission in the 19th Century. Museum Tusculanum Press, 2011. . formerly Narsaq Kujalleq and Frederiksdal (Anglicised: Frederiksthal), is a settlement in southern Greenland. It is located in the Kujalleq municipality near Cape Thorvaldsen. Its population was 62 in 2024. There has been a slow but steady pattern of emigration since the late 1950s.
Geography Narsarmijit is the southernmost settlement in the country, located approximately north of Cape Farewell, the southern cape of Greenland.O'Carroll, Etain & al. Greenland and the Arctic. Lonely Planet, 2005. .
History The city is located in the area of the easternmost of the Norse settlements during their colonization of Greenland.Fiske, John. The Discovery of America, Vol. 1. Echo Library, 2009. . The former village of Ikigait is roughly away and was the site of Herjólfr Bárðarson's farm Herjolfsnes ("Herjolf's Point"Scott, Brian M. Place-Names in the Landnámabók ". Accessed 28 Apr 2012.).
The Moravian missionary Conrad Kleinschmidt (1768–1832)Del, Anden. "Grønland som del af den bibelske fortælling – en 1700-tals studie " ["Greenland as Part of the Biblical Narrative – a Study of the 18th-Century"]. founded the station of Friedrichsthal (, lit. "Frederick's Valley") in 1824. The name honored Frederick VI of Denmark. The station was the Moravian's fourth, after Neu-Herrnhut (1733), Lichtenfels (1748), and Lichtenau (1774) and before Umanak (1861) and Idlorpait (1864). All the Greenland missions were surrendered to the Lutheran church in 1900.Lüdecke, Cornelia. "East Meets West: Meteorological observations of the Moravians in Greenland and Labrador since the 18th century ". History of Meteorology 2 (2005). Accessed 27 Apr 2012. In the 19th century, the area served as a prime territory for sealing.Kent, Kane Elisha. Arctic Explorations. Members of the settlement rescued the survivors of the ill-fated German polar expedition's Hansa in 1870."The 1869/70 German North Polar Expedition ". In 1906, pastor Jens Chemnitz founded Greenland's first sheep farm in Narsarmijit; the industry has since moved north to the larger pastures around Narsaq.
Until 31 December 2008 the settlement belonged to the Nanortalik municipality. Since the administrative reform enacted on 1 January 2009 the settlement has been part of Kujalleq.
Transport
The village is served by the Narsarmijit Heliport. Air Greenland district helicopters link the settlement with Nanortalik, and further to Qaqortoq and Narsarsuaq.
Population Most towns and settlements in southern Greenland exhibit negative growth patterns over the last two decades, with many settlements rapidly depopulating. The population of Narsarmijit has decreased nearly a half relative to the 1990 levels, by nearly a quarter relative to the 2000 levels.Statistics Greenland
References