Before 1997, it was known as Nunatsiaq, and was one of two electoral districts in Northwest Territories.

The riding covers the entire territory of Nunavut.

It is the largest federal electoral district by land area in Canada,[3] and since the abolition of the Division of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, it is the second largest electoral district in the world after Yakutsk in Russia and the largest one represented by a single legislator.

[4] It is also the world's northernmost single-member constituency, Greenland electing two members to the Danish Folketing and using proportional representation for its own Inatsisartut.

In 1999, the district's boundaries were redefined in the Nunavut Act, the law governing the creation of Nunavut as a separate jurisdiction from the Northwest Territories.