Landmark North America
Kujataa
Kujataa is a farming land in the south of Greenland, near the ice. People farmed there long ago, and farmers keep sheep there today!
Kujataa is a farming landscape in southern Greenland. Norse farmers from Iceland began arriving in the 10th century, and Inuit farming communities grew there from the end of the 18th century. UNESCO says it shows the earliest farming in the Arctic, and it became a World Heritage Site in 2017.
Kujataa is a subarctic farming landscape in South Greenland, made of five components. It holds the remains of Norse Greenlandic farms of the 10th to 15th centuries and the farms of Inuit farmers from the 1780s to today. UNESCO inscribed it in 2017 as a cultural landscape under criterion (v), an outstanding example of human settlement.
Photo: Algkalv, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Discover Kujataa
Kujataa is in the south of Greenland.
There, green fields and hills sit beside the sea, and sheep eat the grass.
Kujataa is a farming landscape in the south of Greenland, in the municipality of Kujalleq. Farming is hard so far north, but UNESCO says the fairly mild climate of southern Greenland made it possible here.
Two different peoples farmed this land at different times: Norse farmers long ago, and Inuit farmers from the 1780s until today.
UNESCO describes Kujataa as a subarctic farming landscape whose dramatic natural features and processes shaped farming and grazing in two periods and cultures: the Norse Greenlandic people (10th to 15th centuries) and modern Inuit farmers (18th century to the present).
Its five components together represent the demographic and administrative core of the two farming cultures. The World Heritage Committee's decision calls them the only area in Greenland with the needed subarctic conditions, surrounded by wide and often inaccessible mountain pastures.
- Where
- Kujalleq, South Greenland
- Components
- 5
- Farming cultures
- Norse and Inuit
- World Heritage Site
- 2017
Two farming peoples
Long ago, farmers came from Iceland and made farms here.
Much later, Inuit families started farming here too, and they still do!
Norse farmer-hunters began arriving from Iceland in the 10th century. They farmed and hunted here until the 15th century.
From the end of the 18th century, Inuit hunters and Inuit farming communities grew in the same area. UNESCO says the Norse farms laid the foundations for Inuit farming many centuries later.
The Norse Greenlanders farmed here from the late 10th to the mid-15th century; Inuit farming began in the 1780s and continues today. UNESCO says the landscape represents the earliest introduction of farming to the Arctic and the Norse expansion of settlement beyond Europe, and the Committee's decision says it set the scene for the first European settlement in the New World.
In UNESCO's words, the Norse farming settlements laid the physical foundations for Inuit farming in Greenland many centuries later.
Farming at the edge of the ice
Both peoples kept animals and grew grass for them.
They also hunted animals in the sea for food.
Farming alone was not enough here. Both the Norse and the Inuit combined farming and grazing animals with hunting sea mammals.
The landscape they made has grassy slopes and willow thickets around scattered farms, each with small cultivated fields. In some places sheep still graze around the remains of old Norse farms.
Both cultures were pastoral farmers on the Arctic margins of viable agriculture, so both combined animal husbandry with extensive marine mammal hunting. Grazing in medieval and modern times shaped a landscape of grassy slopes and willow copses around dispersed farmsteads on small cultivated infields.
In some places modern Inuit farms sit next to the remains of Norse farms; elsewhere, in UNESCO's words, sheep grazing keeps the pastoral character of the abandoned Norse farm sites.
Five places, one landscape
Kujataa has five special places.
One of them is Qassiarsuk, with farms on the shore of a long arm of the sea called a fjord.
The World Heritage Site has five parts: Qassiarsuk, Igaliku, Sissarluttoq, Tasikuluulik (Vatnahverfi) and Qaqortukulooq (Hvalsey).
Together they hold old Norse buildings and ruins, farm fields, pastures and meadows, and the houses of Inuit farmers. UNESCO counts language, old place names and knowledge of nature as part of the site too.
The five components are Qassiarsuk, Igaliku, Sissarluttoq, Tasikuluulik (Vatnahverfi) and Qaqortukulooq (Hvalsey). Their attributes include Norse structures, archaeological sites and artifacts; home fields, pastures and meadows; vegetation patterns from farming and grazing; the landforms around them; and Inuit farm houses (listed historic buildings).
UNESCO adds intangible attributes: language, historical place names, ecological knowledge and crafts. Most archaeological sites have not been changed by people since they were abandoned.
- Norse farming
- 10th–15th centuries
- Inuit farming
- 1780s to today
- First component
- Qassiarsuk
- Criterion
- (v)
From a helicopter
This photo was taken from a helicopter.
It shows blue water, green land, a dirt track, a lake and mountains far away.
This photo was taken on 16 July 2009 from a helicopter flying between Narsaq and Narsarsuaq. It shows the farms of Qassiarsuk on the shore of Tunulliarfik Fjord: blue water with small pieces of ice, green slopes, a dirt track, a lake and mountains.
Today a steering group with members including Greenland's government, the Greenland National Museum and Archives, the municipality and village councils looks after Kujataa.
The photographer (Algkalv, own work) took it from an Air Greenland helicopter on the Narsaq-Narsarsuaq flight on 16 July 2009: Qassiarsuk's farms on the shore of Tunulliarfik Fjord, small floating ice, green pasture with a track, a lake and the mountains beyond.
UNESCO names mining and infrastructure development and the intensification of agriculture as the main threats, besides environmental pressures including climate change, and says tourism needs more detailed planning.
Amazing facts
-
Farming in the Arctic began here!
UNESCO says Kujataa represents the earliest introduction of farming to the Arctic.
UNESCO says the landscape represents the earliest introduction of farming to the Arctic and the Norse expansion of settlement beyond Europe.
-
Sheep help keep the old farm places grassy!
At some of the abandoned Norse farms, sheep grazing keeps the land looking like farmland.
UNESCO notes that at relatively undisturbed archaeological landscapes, sheep grazing maintains the pastoral character of the abandoned Norse farm sites.
-
Old place names are part of this World Heritage Site!
UNESCO counts language, old place names and knowledge of nature as part of what makes Kujataa special.
Among Kujataa's attributes UNESCO lists intangible ones: language, historical place names, ecological knowledge and crafts.
Words to know
- fjord
- a long, narrow arm of the sea between steep hills or cliffs
- Norse
- people from Scandinavia and Iceland in the Middle Ages
- Inuit
- the Indigenous people of Greenland and the Arctic of North America
- subarctic
- just south of the Arctic, with long cold winters
- pasture
- grassy land where farm animals graze
- cultural landscape
- land shaped by both nature and the people who lived there
Discovery challenge
-
Where is Kujataa?
On which big island is Kujataa?
Kujataa lies in the Kujalleq municipality of which island?
- Greenland
- Iceland
- Madagascar
Show the answer
Greenland
Greenland!
Greenland.
Greenland, in the south.
-
Where did the first farmers come from?
From where did the Norse farmer-hunters come in the 10th century?
From which island did Norse farmer-hunters start arriving in the 10th century?
- Iceland
- Japan
- Sicily
Show the answer
Iceland
From Iceland!
From Iceland.
Iceland.
-
Besides farming, how did people here get food?
What did Norse and Inuit farmers here combine with farming?
Which kind of hunting complemented farming and pastoralism at Kujataa?
- Hunting sea mammals
- Picking bananas
- Growing rice
Show the answer
Hunting sea mammals
They hunted animals in the sea!
Hunting sea mammals.
Marine mammal hunting.
-
How many special places make up Kujataa?
How many components make up the Kujataa World Heritage Site?
How many components represent the core of the two farming cultures?
- 5
- 2
- 50
Show the answer
5
Five!
Five.
Five, from Qassiarsuk to Qaqortukulooq (Hvalsey).
-
When did Kujataa become a World Heritage Site?
In which year was Kujataa added to the World Heritage List?
In which year was Kujataa inscribed as a cultural landscape under criterion (v)?
- 2017
- 1780
- 1999
Show the answer
2017
In 2017!
In 2017.
2017.
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For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Explain why farming is hard in the far north.
- Describe how two peoples can farm the same land at different times.
- Explain what a cultural landscape is.
Recommended ages: 4 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- What would be hard about farming near a giant ice cap?
- Why might people who farm also need to hunt or fish?
- Why could old place names be worth protecting?
Try at home or in class
- Plant grass seeds in two cups, one on a sunny windowsill and one in a cool, shady spot, and compare after a week.
- Find Greenland, Iceland and Norway on a map of the North Atlantic.
Key vocabulary: fjord, Norse, Inuit, subarctic, pasture, cultural landscape
Where these facts come from
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming at the Edge of the Ice Cap , UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- Kujataa Greenland: maps (components 1536-001 to 1536-005) , UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- Decision 41 COM 8B.22: Kujataa Greenland , UNESCO World Heritage Committee
- File:Tunulliarfik-qassiarsuk.jpg , Wikimedia Commons
- UNESCO World Heritage List , UNESCO World Heritage Centre (Linked as a reference; site facts come from Wikidata)
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA); see each media record)
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated November 1, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.