It was at one time a Hudson's Bay Company trading post, and a Royal Canadian Mounted Police post. The Canadian explorer J. Dewey Soper used these posts as headquarters during his explorations in the 1920s and 1930s.
The community is served by Kimmirut Airport and by annual supply sealift. A proposal in 2005 for a road to Iqaluit was shown to be impractical owing to roundabout routing over the mountains.
As of the 2016 census the population was 389, a decrease of 14.5% from the 2011 census
The community has been served by the Qiniq network since 2005. Qiniq is a fixed wireless service to homes and businesses, connecting to the outside world via a satellite backbone. The Qiniq network is designed and operated by SSI Micro. In 2017, the network was upgraded to 4G LTE technology, and 2G-GSM for mobile voice.
Kimmirut has an Arctic climate (Köppen: ET), although it is well outside the Arctic Circle. The city has cold winters and short summers that are too cool to permit the growth of trees. It is north of the tree line, and average monthly temperatures are below freezing for eight months of the year. Kimmirut averages just over 335 mm (13.2 in) of precipitation annually, wetter than many other localities in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, with the summer being the wettest season.
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