History of Sisimiut

eral Trade Company as the trading post of Holsteinsborg ("Fort Holstein"), named for the first chairman of the Danish College of Missions in Copenhagen which underwrote and directed the missionary work in the colony. At the time of its founding, the Kalaallisut name of the place was Amerlok, after its fjord. The colonists formally established several villages in the region, of which only two remain to this day: Itilleq and Sarfannguit. Under the Royal Greenland Trading Department, Holsteinsborg was a center of the trade in reindeer skins.

Several 18th-century buildings still stand in Sisimiut, among them the 1725 Gammelhuset ("Old House") and the 1775 Bethel-kirken ("Bethel Church") or Blå Kirke ("Blue Church"), the oldest surviving church in Greenland. The buildings were moved from the former site of the settlement at Ukiivik (Holsteinsborg) together with the rest of the settlement. The new church on the rocky pedestal was built in 1926, further extended in 1984. The entrance to the yard with the old church and other protected historical buildings is decorated with a unique gate made of whale jawbone. In 1801, a smallpox epidemic decimated the population of Sisimiut and other coastal settlements, although the population growth quickly resumed due to plentiful marine life on the coast.

20th century - present

The twentieth century saw industrialization, through the construction of a shipping port, and a fish processing factory of Royal Greenland in 1924, the first such factory in Greenland. Fishing remains the primary occupation of Sisimiut inhabitants, with the town becoming the leading center of shrimping and shrimp processing. Until 2008 Sisimiut had been the administrative center of Sisimiut Municipality, which was then incorporated into the new Qeqqata Municipality on 1