Norilsk (Russian: Нори́льск, IPA: [nɐˈrʲilʲsk]) is an industrial closed city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located south of the western Taymyr Peninsula, around 90 km east of the Yenisey River and 1,500 km north of Krasnoyarsk. Norilsk is 300 km north of the Arctic Circle and 2,400 km from the North Pole. It has a permanent population of 176,735 as of 2024, and up to 220,000 including temporary inhabitants. It is the second-largest city in the region after Krasnoyarsk. It is the world's northernmost city with more than 175,000 inhabitants, and the second-largest city (after Murmansk) inside the Arctic Circle. Norilsk and Yakutsk are the only large cities in the continuous permafrost zone.

Norilsk is located atop some of the largest nickel deposits on Earth. Consequently, mining and smelting ore are the major industries. Norilsk is the center of a region where nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum, palladium, and coal are mined. The presence of mineral deposits in the Siberian Craton was known for two centuries before Norilsk was founded, but large-scale industrial mining only began after the Soviet Council of People's Commissars approved the construction of Norilsk Plant in 1935, which was completed by 1939. Production started with intermediary products, with the first converter matte being produced in 1942, but the Norilsk mines quickly grew to be a major source of Russia's nickel production. Prior to this, small scale coal mining existed in the region.

In 2004, two satellite cities (Talnakh and Kayerkan) became districts of the city of Norilsk, and Oganer became a suburb of Norilsk's Central District. The jurisdiction of Norilsk also extends to the settlement of Snezhnogorsk, which originated in 1963 as a settlement to accommodate the builders of the Ust-Khantai Hydroelectric Power Station. Access to Norilsk is restricted for foreign citizens, who are required to obtain special permission to visit.

Norilsk owes its name to its geographical location. The Norilsk river flows near the city, which is located near the Norilsk mountains. The travelers Khariton Laptev, Alexander Fyodorovich Middendorf, and Fedor Bogdanovich Schmidt mentioned the river Norilsk and the Norilsk mountains in their accounts.

According to the Soviet Arctic explorer Nikolay Urvantsev, the Norilsk river was probably given its former name, Norilka, in the 16th–17th centuries during the existence of the city Mangazeya, when the Taymyr was settled by Russian fishing people. It is likely that the name of the river comes from the word norilo, a long thin pole that was used to stretch a string of trap nets from hole to hole under the ice.

Some argue the name derives from the Yukagir word nerile, meaning "an earthen hill, consisting of some crags, cliffs" (the mountains around Norilsk do indeed resemble neriles). Others suggest, the name of the river (Norilka) and, accordingly, the city name come from the Evenk word narus, or nioril in Yukaghir, which mean "swamps". It may also have originated from the name of an Evenk tribe, the Nyurilians; or, from the name of the nearby Lake Murilskoye.

People knew about the minerals in the Norilsk area as early as the Bronze Age.^{[citation needed]} A site with primitive equipment for smelting and casting, as well as raw materials (balls of native copper), has been discovered near Lake Pyasino.

In the 16th–17th centuries, copper from the Norilsk deposits was used by the inhabitants of Mangazeya, a city located beyond the Arctic Circle on the Taz River, which was an important regional trading and craft center. During the excavations of Mangazeya in 1972–1975, professor Mikhail Ivanovich Belov discovered a vast foundry yard. Platinoids were found in the remains of the copper wares unearthed there.