Nunavut, Arctic Canada
Nunavut, Arctic Canada: the places inside it, the companies based here, and where this atlas has research on it.
territory · North America · page prepared 2026-11-07
Known for polar bears, Inuit people
Visiting rather than moving? The free guidebook for Nunavut →
Nunavut at a glance
Rolled up from the 3 regions inside Nunavut on this site, with census figures from Statistics Canada.
Who leads Nunavut, and how households are doing
Researched 2026-11-08 from official statistics; every figure links to its source.
- Population
- 43,091 persons (2026-Q3) ↗
- GDP
- 7,202 CAD millions, current prices (expenditure-based GDP at market prices) (2025) ↗
- Unemployment
- 12.2 % (LFS, three-month moving average, seasonally adjusted, 15+) (2026-10) ↗
- Median household income
- 109,600 CAD, median after-tax income of families and unattached individuals (2024 constant dollars, table 11-10-0190) (2024) ↗
- Home ownership
- 19.2 % of households owner-occupied (2021 Census) (2021) ↗
Languages
Official-language and home-language figures as the census reports them.
| Language | Share | Measure | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inuktut (Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun and other Inuit languages) ↗ | 62.7% | mother tongue (alone or with another language) | 2021 |
| Inuktitut ↗ | 52.2% | mother tongue (only Inuktitut) | 2021 |
| Inuinnaqtun ↗ | 0.6% | mother tongue (only Inuinnaqtun) | 2021 |
| English ↗ | 94.1% | knowledge (can conduct a conversation) | 2021 |
| Inuktut ↗ | 70% | knowledge (can conduct a conversation) | 2021 |
| Inuktitut ↗ | 68.7% | knowledge (can conduct a conversation) | 2021 |
| Inuinnaqtun ↗ | 1.4% | knowledge (can conduct a conversation) | 2021 |
| Two or more languages (bilingual/multilingual) ↗ | 68% | knowledge (can conduct a conversation in two or more languages; highest of any province/territory) | 2021 |
| Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, English, French ↗ | official status (four official languages of Nunavut) | 2021 |
Worth knowing
- 2025-11John Main became premier on November 20, 2025, succeeding P.J. Akeeagok — the first non-Inuk premier in the territory's history; MLAs choose the premier under Nunavut's party-less consensus government. ↗
- 2026-07As of April 1, 2027, the Government of Nunavut assumes administration and control of Crown lands, natural resources and inland waters under the Devolution Agreement signed by Canada, Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated. ↗
- 2026-07On July 3, 2026 Canada, Nunavut and NTI each decided the 2023 Recommended Nunavut Land Use Plan — which would cover one-fifth of Canada's land mass — cannot be accepted as currently drafted; work continues with the Nunavut Planning Commission. ↗
- 2021Nunavut's homeownership rate was 19.2% in 2021, down 1.8 percentage points from 21.0% in 2011 — by far the lowest in Canada. ↗
- 2020Median household after-tax income in Nunavut was $104,000 in 2020 (2021 Census), up 11.8% from 2015. ↗
- 2024Real GDP was $4,117.3 million (chained 2017 dollars) in 2024; all industries contributed 7.459 percentage points of change that year. ↗
Census
Statistics Canada, 2021 Census of Population.
- Inuktitut15,115 · 41.3%
- Inuinnaqtun (Inuvialuktun)60 · 0.2%
- Inuinnaqtun55 · 0.2%
Inside Nunavut
3 regions have Nunavut as their parent.
Companies based in Nunavut
1 companies in the Research Upon directory have their headquarters somewhere in Nunavut. Search them by name or industry.
areaAbout this page: figures for the whole of Nunavut, Arctic Canada are rolled up from every region inside it; each place inside has a page of its own, and the companies headquartered here are listed above.