According to the Soviet Arctic explorer Nikolay Urvantsev, the Norilsk river was probably given its former name, Norilka, in the 16th–17th centuries during the existence of the city Mangazeya, when the Taymyr was settled by Russian fishing people.

[citation needed] A site with primitive equipment for smelting and casting, as well as raw materials (balls of native copper), has been discovered near Lake Pyasino.

[17] In the 16th–17th centuries, copper from the Norilsk deposits was used by the inhabitants of Mangazeya, a city located beyond the Arctic Circle on the Taz River, which was an important regional trading and craft center.

Geologist and explorer Nikolay Urvantsev carried out further study of the Norilsk region during expeditions from 1919 to 1926, which confirmed the presence of rich deposits of coal and polymetallic ores in the western spurs of the Putorana Plateau.

[23] In the late 1940s, architects began to design a new city on the eastern shore of Lake Dolgoye, and Norillag prisoners started building work in 1951.

According to the Norillag archives, 16,806 prisoners died in Norilsk as a result of forced labor, starvation and intense cold during the years the camp was operational (1935–1956).

Russian author Boris Ivanov wrote about the most famous one: In the center of Norilsk, on Gvardeyskaya Square, "in an atmosphere of solemnity", a foundation stone was even set, promising the construction of a monument on this spot to those who created the basis of the plant and this miracle city.

On a plaque attached to it are the words: "An obelisk will be built here, an eternal reminder of the feat of the Norilsk people who conquered the tundra, created our city and the plant".

[25] In the 1980s, the Norilsk Golgotha memorial complex was built on the slope of Mount Schmidtikh to house the mass graves of the prisoners who founded the city.

[29] In June 2020, 20,000 tons of diesel fuel spilled from the tank of an NTEK power plant, polluting hundreds of square kilometers and causing serious damage to the local ecosystem.

As of 2021, the predominant ethnic and cultural groups were Russians, Azerbaijanis, Ukrainians, Tatars, Bashkirs, Nogais, Lezgins, Kazakhs, Ossetians, Chuvash and Kyrgyz.

Despite being located inside the Arctic Circle, Norilsk has a subarctic climate (Köppen: Dfc; Trewartha: Ecld) with very long, extremely cold winters (from early October to May) and very short, mild summers.

[61] The smelting of the nickel ore is directly responsible for severe pollution, which generally takes the form of acid rain and smog.

[62] Norilsk is a city with an extremely unfavorable ecological and environmental situation, but recent initiatives have begun to tackle some of the region's most serious pollution issues.

The list cites air pollution by particulates, including radioisotopes strontium-90, and caesium-137; the metals nickel, copper, cobalt, and lead; selenium; and by gases (such as nitrogen and carbon oxides, sulfur dioxide, phenols and hydrogen sulfide).

The Institute estimates that 4 million tons of cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, arsenic, selenium and zinc are released into the air every year.

[66] According to an April 2007 BBC News report,[67] Norilsk Nickel accepted personal responsibility for what had happened to the forests around the city, and insisted that the company was implementing measures to reduce pollution.

[69] Russia's Environment Ministry issued a statement claiming that preliminary evidence pointed towards Nornickel-owned wastewater pipes from a nearby smelting plant as the source of the contamination.

In addition to achieving higher production rates, the goal of the modernization was also to reduce the negative impact on the environment by increasing the recovery of sulfur from ore to tailings.

One of the bigger steps taken to combat pollution was the closure of Nornickel's old smelter in Norilsk, the main source of SO2 emissions within the city boundaries since 1942.

By June 3, according to Rosprirodnadzor, the maximum permissible concentration of harmful substances in the water of the Ambarnaya River exceeded the norm by tens of thousands of times.

On August 26, 2021, the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation Alexander Chupriyan announced that clean-up work was complete.

As there is no overland communication with the "Big Land", groups of enthusiasts make road trips to Norilsk in off-road vehicles from other cities in Russia.

The construction of the fiber optic line cost Norilsk Nickel 2.5 billion rubles, an investment that will not pay off, according to Russian business daily Vedomosti.

The theater also collaborated with Grigory Gorin and Yuli Kim, whose musical How the Soldier Ivan Chonkin Guarded the Plane, based on Vladimir Voinovich's novel The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, was staged in Norilsk for the first time and awarded the Golden Ostap Prize at a satire and humor festival in St. Petersburg (1997).

In response, regional authorities have announced a 650-million-ruble (€7.9 million) thermal stabilisation program for 10 Norilsk apartment buildings whose foundations are under threat.

On November 16, 2020, the city launched Norilsk TV, its first municipal round-the-clock channel, broadcast by local cable operators MTS and Norсom under number 24.

Until August 2019, news was produced and broadcast by the GTRK Norilsk Television and Radio Company, a division of VGTRK that was subsequently closed due to reorganization.

Norilsk has nine municipal extracurricular sports centers, where schoolchildren can choose from a variety of sports and activities: basketball, volleyball, acrobatics, gymnastics, trampoline, track and field, cross-country skiing, fencing, boxing, wrestling, swimming, taekwondo, judo, weightlifting, karate, futsal, figure skating, hockey, and water polo.

Norilsk and Dudinka host the international WCT Arctic Cup, which features teams from Hungary, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, and Estonia.