The Arctic has been a homeland for the region's indigenous peoples, but has also in more recent times been settled by other cultures and integrated into the territory of the eight Arctic states. This theme explores how the demographics and distribution of people and peoples across the North.

Areas show colours according to the original languages of the respective indigenous peoples, even if they do not speak their languages today. Notes: Overlapping populations are not shown. The map does not claim to show exact boundaries between the individual language groups. Typical colonial populations, which are not traditional Arctic populations, are not shown (Danes in Greenland, Russians in the Russian Federation, non-native Americans in North America).

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Broadly speaking, there are approximately 13.1 million individuals residing in the area of the circumpolar North. This figure represents less than one per cent of the total global population.

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