Norilsk is the world’s northernmost city with 150,000 inhabitants and is the second largest city (after Murmansk) inside the Arctic Circle.
Norilsk is one of the only three large cities in the continuous permafrost zone. Norilsk is the most polluted city in Russia because there are a lot of ecological problems (air pollution, generally acid rains, smog, dumping of polluted water) and due to the mining and metallurgical plants owned by Norilsk Nickel.