Visit Greenland Ilulissat

Visit Ilulissat Greenland

Harbour of Ilulissat Western Greenland

Ilulissat (Danish: Jakobshavn from founder Jakob Severin) is a town in the Qaasuitsup municipality in western Greenland, located approximately 200 km (120 mi) north of the Arctic Circle. With the population of 4,546 as of 2010, it is the third-largest settlement in Greenland, after Nuuk and Sisimiut.

Aurora Borealis around Ilulissat

In direct translation, Ilulissat is the Greenlandic word for "the icebergs". Ilulissat is Greenland's most popular tourist destination on account of its proximity to the picturesque Ilulissat Icefjord. Tourism is now the town's principal industry.

Ilulissat is beautifully situated at the mouth of the 40-kilometre ice fjord filled with enormous icebergs produced by the most productive glacier in the Northern Hemisphere, Sermeq Kujalleq. Ilulissat Icefjord was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004.

What are Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis?
We are North of the Arctic Circle, and in summer the sun shines 24 hours a day for later this year to turn black and leave the stage to the colorful northern lights - Aurora Borealis.

World-class ice

glacier at Ilulissat ice fjord

The ice fjord and the glacier at Ilulissat make up a world-class area of outstanding natural beauty, as a result of which the fjord was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list in 2004. One thing is official lists, however, quite another is a wish list of places that you love and would be happy to return to again and again. Ilulissat and the surrounding region rich in ice also feature high up on this list.

Ilulissat ice fjord

Thousands of visitors travel to Ilulissat every year in order to satisfy themselves at first hand that this natural phenomenon is indeed world class.

What makes the location so magnificent is Sermeq Kujalleq, the biggest glacier and biggest ice stream outside Antarctica. Here you'll find a very unusual ice flow, a huge ice fjord and enormous icebergs.

The figures speak for themselves: the glacier is more than 3,000 km2 in area and calves about 40 cubic kilometres of ice every year. The ice from the glaciers thus totally dominates the sea in large parts of Disko Bay and in the sea west of Greenland.

Ilulissat west Greenland

Just has to be experienced
 However, facts and figures alone cannot account for what you experience when visiting this place. It just has to be seen, heard, smelt and felt - in other words, to be experienced!

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With its enormous dimensions, distinctive beauty and tranquillity, the fantastic ice landscape provokes a particular mood, where you realise that all your everyday worries fade into insignificance against the perspective of the centuries that have gone by in the creation of this ice. Billions and billions of snowflakes have fallen and been compressed into Greenland's Ice Sheet, after which they've flowed together towards the ice fjord and ended up calving and breaking off into large icebergs that continue their journey out to sea.

Ilulissat ice fjord

These natural forces have been active for millennia, driven by the sun, the weather systems and the force of gravity. It's geophysics in a huge, large-scale laboratory lying at your feet as you look out from the cliff.

The settlement at Sermermiut
Cultural remnants from the Eskimo culture can also be found at the ice fjord. Just one kilometre outside Ilulissat at the end of the Sermermiut valley lies the settlement of Sermermiut. The settlement was inhabited until the middle of the 19th century and contains traces of all three of the immigrant cultures that have populated and continue to populate Greenland.

Here, among the ruins of turf houses and kitchen middens and against a backdrop of icebergs, it isn't difficult to imagine life as it's been played out over the millennia: On the sea the hunters - family fathers - are making their way home from the hunt; round about the turf houses children are playing with their toys, which are miniature versions of the men's hunting tools; whilst the women are flaying seals or making food.

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Earlier generations preferred this place in the same way that it continues to attract people from all over the world today. World-class natural scenery!

FACTS:

Ilulissat Icefjord Greenland Arctic

The ice fjord and the glacier on the world heritage list
The Icefjord (Kangia) and Sermeq Kujalleq (Jakobshavn Glacier), along with the landscape and the surrounding region, were admitted onto UNESCO's list of areas of world heritage in 2004 due to its glaciological characteristics and the beauty of its landscape.
Read more on the website of the Icefjord Office of Ilulissat

Visit Ilulissat by Air

Ilulissat airport destinations

Ilulissat has an international airport located 2.8 km (1.7 mi) to the northeast of the town center. Built in 1983.

Ilulissat Airport serves Ilulissat, with connections to towns in northwestern, western Greenland and Reykjavik, Reykjavik Airport in Iceland.

Connections to Iceland, starts year-round from April 2011

Air Greenland operates further connections to domestic destinations.
Air Iceland operates flights to Iceland, connecting Ilulissat to other parts of the world.

Visit Ilulissat by Sea

helicopter wiev Icefjord Greenland Arctic

Arctic Umiaq Line coastal ferry links Ilulissat with Sisimiut, Nuuk, and other towns and settlements on the western and southwestern coast of Greenland.

For most things in life, it is best to start with an overview, and the Ilulissat Icefjord is no different. This icefjord, one of the northernmost UNESCO World Heritage Sites, is a massive collection of icebergs that have calved from the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier one by one. It is necessary to first get a bird’s eye view so you know exactly how grand of a scale the Ilulissat Icefjord has.

your first sight of the Ilulissat Icefjord will actually be from the window of an airplane. It’s a nice view, but get an even better look by flightseeing with a helicopter or fixed-wing plane.