The Inuit are an indigenous people of the circumpolar Arctic, spanning Arctic Canada, Greenland and northern Alaska, closely related to but ethnolinguistically distinct from the Yupik peoples of Siberia and southwestern Alaska. Inuit society developed a well-documented set of technologies and social practices specifically adapted to Arctic subsistence hunting, including sea-mammal hunting, seasonal camp mobility and extended kin-based sharing networks for distributing food in a resource-scarce environment. In 1999 Canada established the territory of Nunavut, with an Inuit-majority population and significant Inuit self-government, following a documented land-claims process, and Greenland's Inuit-majority Self-Government arrangement with Denmark, expanded in 2009, is a further documented case of contemporary Inuit political self-determination.
Facts
Group TypeSourced to the subject's own accountIndigenous ethnic group (circumpolar) 1 Typical RegionSourced to the subject's own accountArctic North America and Greenland (Canada, Greenland/Denmark, Alaska/United States, with related Yupik peoples in Russia) 1 Primary LanguageSourced to the subject's own accountInuit languages (Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, Greenlandic and related varieties) 1 Subsistence ModeSourced to the subject's own accountHistorically hunting and fishing adapted to Arctic and subarctic environments (seal, whale, caribou and fish), with distinctive technology including the kayak, umiak and dog sled. 1 Disputed
Population EstimateSourced to the subject's own accountInuit populations are counted separately across Canadian, Greenlandic/Danish and Alaskan U.S. census systems using differing ethnic categories, so aggregate totals are approximate. Sources
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