II.

Physical Characteristics and Regional Groupings

The Inuit people display metabolic, circulatory, and other adaptations to the Arctic climate (see Human Ecology). Inhabiting an area spanning almost 5,150 km (3,200 mi), Inuit have a wider geographical range than any other indigenous people and are the most sparsely distributed people on Earth. They fall generally into the following geographical (and cultural) divisions, moving from east to west: (1) Greenland Inuit, living on the eastern and western coasts of southern Greenland, who have adopted many European ways and are known as Greenlanders or Kalaallitt (Kalâtdlit); (2) Labrador Inuit, occupying the coast from the southern Labrador Peninsula to Hudson Bay, with a few settlements on southern Baffin Island; (3) Central Inuit, including those of far northern Greenland and, in Canada, Baffin Island and western Hudson Bay; (4) Banks-Island Inuit, on Banks Island, Victoria Island, and other large islands off the central Arctic coast; (5) Western-Arctic Inuit or Inuvialuit, along the western Arctic coast of Canada; (6) Alaskan Inuit; (7) Alaskan Yuit; and (8) Siberian Yuit.