Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway in the Arctic Ocean.
Constituting the westernmost bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea. Spitsbergen covers an area of, making it the largest island in Norway and the 36th largest in the world. The administrative centre is Longyearbyen. Other settlements, in addition to research outposts, are the mining community of Barentsburg, the research community of Ny-Ålesund, and the mining outpost of Sveagruva. Spitsbergen was covered in of ice in 1999, which was approximately 58.5% of the island's total area.
The island was first used as a whaling base in the 17th and 18th centuries, after which it was abandoned. Coal mining started at the end of the 19th century, and several permanent communities were established. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 recognized Norwegian sovereignty and established Svalbard as a free economic zone and a demilitarized zone.
The Norwegian Store Norske and the Russian Arktikugol are the only mining companies at Spitsbergen. Research and tourism have become the important supplementary industries, featuring among others the University Centre in Svalbard and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. No roads connect the settlements; instead snowmobiles, aircraft and boats serve as local transport. Svalbard Airport, Longyearbyen provides the main point of entry and exit.
The island has an Arctic climate, although with significantly higher temperatures than other places at the same latitude. The flora benefits from the long period of midnight sun, which compensates for the polar night. Svalbard is a breeding ground for many seabirds and also supports polar bears, arctic foxes, reindeer, and marine mammals. Six national parks protect the largely untouched, yet fragile environment. The island has many glaciers, mountains, and fjords.
Etymology
The Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz gave Spitsbergen its name when he discovered it in 1596. The name Spitsbergen, meaning "pointed mountains", at first applied both to the main island and to the associated archipelago as a whole. In the 17th and 18th centuries, English whalers referred to the islands as "Greenland", a practice still followed in 1780 and criticized by Sigismund Bacstrom at that time. The "Spitzbergen" spelling was used in English during the 19th century, for instance by Beechey, Laing, and the Royal Society.In 1906 the Arctic explorer Sir Martin Conway regarded the Spitzbergen spelling as incorrect; he preferred Spitsbergen, as he noted that the name was Dutch, not German. This had little effect on British practice. In 1920 the international treaty determining the status of the islands was entitled the "Spitsbergen Treaty". The islands were generally referred to in the United States as "Spitsbergen" from that time, although the spelling "Spitzbergen" also commonly occurred through the 20th century.
The Norwegian administrating authorities named the archipelago Svalbard in 1925, the main island becoming Spitsbergen. By the end of the 20th century, this usage had become common.
History
The first recorded sighting of the island was by Willem Barentsz, a Dutch explorer who came across it while searching for the Northern Sea Route in June 1596. The first good map, with the east coast roughly indicated, appeared in 1623, printed by Willem Janszoon Blaeu. Around 1660 and 1728, better maps were produced.The archipelago may have been known to Russian Pomor hunters as early as the 14th or 15th century, although solid evidence preceding the 17th century is lacking. Following the English whalers and others in referring to the archipelago as Greenland, they named it Grumant. The name Svalbard is first mentioned in Icelandic sagas of the 10th and 11th centuries, but this may have been Jan Mayen.
Early claims
Early whaling expeditions to Svalbard in general and Spitsbergen in particular tended, because of currents and fauna, to cluster on the western coast of Spitsbergen and the islands off shore. Shortly after whaling began, the Danish–Norwegian crown in 1616 claimed ownership of Jan Mayen and the Spitsbergen islands, as all of Svalbard was then known, but in 1613, the English Muscovy Company had done the same.The primary and most profitable whaling grounds of this joint-stock company came to be centered on Spitsbergen in the early 17th century, and the company's 1613 Royal Charter from the English Crown granted a monopoly on whaling in Spitsbergen, based on the claim that Hugh Willoughby had discovered the land in 1553. Not only had they wrongly assumed a 1553 English voyage had reached the area, but on 27 June 1607, during his first voyage in search of a "northeast passage" on behalf of the company, Henry Hudson sighted "Newland", near the mouth of the great bay Hudson later named the Great Indraught. In this way, the English hoped to head off expansion in the region by the Dutch, at the time their major rival.
Initially, the English tried to drive away competitors, but after disputes with the Dutch, they, for the most part, only claimed the bays south of Kongsfjorden.
Danish expansion
From 1617 onwards, a Danish-chartered company began sending whaling fleets to Spitsbergen. This successful expansion by Denmark into the North Atlantic has recently been cited by historians as the first step of the Danish–Norwegian state into overseas colonialism. It eventually built a small overseas empire of East Indian trade posts, North Atlantic possessions, and a small Atlantic trade route between possessions on the Guinea Coast and what are now the United States Virgin Islands.The entire Svalbard archipelago, nominally ruled first by Denmark–Norway, and later the Norwegians, remained a source of riches for fishery and whaling vessels from many nations. The islands also became the launching point for a number of Arctic explorers, including William Edward Parry, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, Otto Martin Torell, Alfred Gabriel Nathorst, Roald Amundsen and Ernest Shackleton.
Spitsbergen Treaty
Between 1913 and 1920, Spitsbergen was a neutral condominium. The Spitsbergen Treaty of 9 February 1920, recognises the full and absolute sovereignty of Norway over all the arctic archipelago of Svalbard. The exercise of sovereignty is, however, subject to certain stipulations, and not all Norwegian law applies. Originally limited to nine signatory nations, over 40 are now signatories of the treaty. Citizens of any of the signatory countries may settle in the archipelago. Once named Spitsbergen after its largest island, the Svalbard archipelago was made a part of Norway—not a dependency—by the Svalbard Act of 1925. Since this date, it has been a region of Norway, with a Norwegian-appointed governor resident at the administrative centre of Longyearbyen. Limitations on the imposition of certain Norwegian laws are outlined in the Spitsbergen Treaty.The largest settlement on Spitsbergen is the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen, while the second-largest settlement is the Russian coal-mining settlement of Barentsburg. Other settlements on the island include the former Russian mining communities of Grumantbyen and Pyramiden, a Polish research station at Hornsund, and the remote northern settlement of Ny-Ålesund.
World War II
were stationed on the island in 1941 to prevent Nazi Germany from occupying the islands. Norway came under German occupation in 1940. Germany took control of the coal fields and the weather station during this time, although most of the inhabitants on the island were Russian and Germany and the Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact until 22 June 1941. Once the non-aggression pact was ended, the United Kingdom and Canada sent military forces to the island to destroy German installations, both the Soviet coal mines and the German weather station.In 1943, the German battleship Tirpitz and an escort flotilla shelled and destroyed the Allied weather station in Operation Zitronella. On 6 September, a squadron consisting of Tirpitz, the battleship Scharnhorst, and nine destroyers weighed anchor in Altenfjord and Kåfjord and headed for Spitsbergen, to attack the Allied base. At dawn on 8 September 1943, Tirpitz and Scharnhorst opened fire against the two 3-inch guns which comprised the defences of Barentsburg, and the destroyers ran inshore with landing parties, destroying a supply dump and wrecking a landing station. By noon, the hostilities had ended, with the landing parties returning to the ships, along with some prisoners. The German ships returned safely to Altenfjord and Kåfjord on 9 September 1943. This was the last operation for the Tirpitz.
Postwar
On 29 August 1996, Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801 crashed on the island, killing all 141 people on board.Government
The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 established full Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard. All 40 signatory countries of the treaty have the right to conduct commercial activities on the archipelago without discrimination, although all activity is subject to Norwegian legislation. The treaty limits Norway's right to collect taxes to that of financing services on Svalbard. Spitsbergen is a demilitarized zone, as the treaty prohibits the establishment of military installations. The treaty requires Norway to protect the natural environment. The island is administered by the Governor of Svalbard, who holds the responsibility as both county governor and chief of police, as well as authority granted from the executive branch. Although Norway is part of the European Economic Area and the Schengen Agreement, Svalbard is not part of the Schengen Area nor EEA.Residents of Spitsbergen do not need visas for Schengen but are prohibited from reaching Svalbard from mainland Norway without them. People without a means of income can be rejected as residents by the governor. Citizens of any treaty signatory country may visit the island without a visa. Russia retains a consulate in Barentsburg.