The Iivit live now mainly in Tasiilaq and Ittoqqortoormiit and are a part of the Arctic people known collectively as the Inuit.

Iivit or Tunumiit or the Eastern Inuit, live primarily in the Ammassalik region, the area with the mildest climate in King Christian IX Land.

There were two other Eastern Greenland groups in the long coast between Nunap Isua (Cape Farewell) to King Frederick VIII Land, the Northeast in Kangerlussuaq Fjord and adjacent areas up to Clavering Island, north of the Iivit, and the Southeast-Greenland Inuit in the King Frederick VI Coast to the south, but these are now extinct.

When no harm befell him for creating and showing this object to an outsider, others began making tupilait, which evolved into a popular art form.

[9] Residents also carved Ammassalik wooden maps, that traced the Eastern Greenlandic coastline.