Knowledge of snow accumulation rates of the large polar ice sheets and their variability over time is crucial for mass budget studies and sea level predictions. Here we present mean long-term snow accumulation rates of 12 shallow ice cores drilled by the North Greenland traverse in the northern part of Greenland. The ice core records cover the last 500 to 1000 years. We find a trend of decreasing accumulation rate from the southwest (~180 mmWE/a) to northeast (~95 mmWE/a). Ice divide sites show higher accumulation rates but also higher variability (up to 20%) than sites off the ice divides (less than 10%). Unlike a recent modeling study our results indicate no change in the accumulation in the north of Greenland during the last 400 years