The low-lying areas around Hammeralven (Hammer River) have a lot of tangible evidence of human settlement in the past 9,000 years which include Viking artefacts, money, ships, old forts and wooden village buildings. The evidence  suggests that there were at least 17 independent villages along the banks of Hammeralven about 5,000 years ago. The villages all flourished due to abundance of fishes, fresh water, timber and fertile lands. Most of the tangible evidence, such as money for example, has been restored and placed on display at either National Museum of Sverland or Godthabs Universitet. One of the notable villages that survived the test of history is Gotaab. 

The earliest mention of Godthab as the name of the settlement was in 963 BCE as Gotaab. The location of Gotaab village has always been the same - on the banks of Hammeralven against the foothills of Kasakka Mountain (one of the highest mountains in the region). Between 963 BCE and early 1200s CE, Gotaab was simply a small fishing village with markets that enabled commercial trade. Some historians believe the name Gotaab might have derived from Gota which is the ancient Sverlandic word for 'water' and the suffix -ab at the end represents a town however some top linguists did not agree with this. Linguists at Godthab Universitet claims that Got means fishing and the suffix -aab means shop or marketplace in ancient Sverlandic. 

In 1226 when Gotaab was proclaimed a city under the Royal Charter of Sverland, the fishing village rapidly grew until the King of Sverland decided to relocate the town upstream on a better, flatter island. From there, Gotaab continued to grow rapidly. Due to a rising Arctic Orthodox influence and a series of slow changes in the Sverlandic language in the 1300s and 1400s, the new town of Gotaab was renamed to Godthab however the old, original village did not change the name. Over the time, Godthab became a dominant name for the city region. 

Since 1400s, Godthab is the name of the city region as whole while Gotaab remained the name of the old town district in the original location. 

The aerial view of the Godthab region with old Gotaab town in the foreground and new Godthab in the distance (upper centre of the picture).

The old, original town of Gotaab in dusk.

The view of Gotaab from the forehills of the Kasakka mountain.