Map - Longyearbyen

Longyearbyen
Longyearbyen (, locally [ˈlɔ̀ŋjɑrˌbyːən]; "The Longyear Town") is the world's northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000 and the largest inhabited area of Svalbard, Norway. It stretches along the foot of the left bank of the Longyear Valley and on the shore of Adventfjorden, the short estuary leading into Isfjorden on the west coast of Spitsbergen, the island's broadest inlet. As of 2002 Longyearbyen Community Council became an official Norwegian municipality. It is the seat of the Governor of Svalbard. The town's mayor is Arild Olsen.

Known as Longyear City until 1926, the town was established by and named after American John Munro Longyear, whose Arctic Coal Company started coal-mining there in 1906. Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani (SNSK) took over the mining operations in 1916, and still conducts mining. The German Kriegsmarine almost completely destroyed the town on 8 September 1943, but rebuilding took place after the Second World War. Historically, Longyearbyen was a company town, but most mining operations moved to Sveagruva during the 1990s, and production ceased in 2017 due to immense financial losses suffered by SNSK since 2014 due to market conditions. Meanwhile, the town has seen a large increase in tourism and research. This includes the arrival of institutions such as the University Centre in Svalbard, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and Svalbard Satellite Station. Svalbard Airport, Svalbard Church and the Svalbardbutikken department store serve the community.

In 1896, Vesteraalens Dampskibsselskab started tours to Hotellneset. To accommodate tourists, they built a prefabricated hotel, but it was not profitable and was closed after the 1897 season. However, two families overwintered in 1898–99. and Norway Post operated a post office at Hotellneset from 1897 to 1899. The first commercially viable coal on Svalbard was harvested by Søren Zakariassen in 1899. In 1901, Bergen-Spitsbergen Kullgrube-kompani started mining coal in Adventtoppen.

The American industrialist John Munro Longyear visited Spitsbergen as a tourist in 1901, and met with an expedition prospecting for coal. In 1903 he returned to Spitsbergen, where he met Henrik B. Næss in Adventfjorden, who gave him samples and information on coal fields. Along with his associate Frederick Ayer, Longyear bought the Norwegian claims on the west side of Adventfjorden, and expanded the claims significantly the following year. In 1906, the Boston-based Arctic Coal Company, with Ayer and Longyear as the main shareholders, started mining in Mine 1a, after building docks and housing. The company had American administration, but mostly Norwegian labourers, and named the town Longyear City. Coal was transported the 1.2 km from the mine to the port using an aerial tramway built by the aerial cableway company Adolf Bleichert & Co. of Leipzig, Germany. In 1913, the company started preliminary work to open Mine 2a.

Following financial difficulties during the First World War, the mining operations were bought by Store Norske, which was incorporated in Oslo on 30 November 1916. That year, SNSK built five new barracks, including one that was made into a hospital. SNSK introduced its own money with the approval of Norges Bank, consisting entirely of banknotes at par with Norwegian krone. The American community buried their dead at Hotellneset. In 1918, eleven people were killed by the Spanish flu and a graveyard was established in Longyear City. Two years later, 26 men were killed in a coal dust explosion in Mine 1. This resulted in the mine being closed and the electrification of Mine 2. The same year, the first truck was delivered for use in the mining operations.

The Church of Norway appointed Thorleif Østenstad as Svalbard's first vicar and teacher in 1920. A school was established jointly by the church and SNSK and had an inaugural eight pupils. The first church in Svalbard opened on 28 August 1921, and the church's reading room was from then on used as a school. Longyear City was renamed Longyearbyen in 1926.

The Norwegian Telecommunications Administration established a coast radio station, Svalbard Radio, at Finneset in 1911, which was moved to Longyearbyen in 1930. The town's tourist industry started in 1935, when SS Lyngen started calling regularly during the summer season. In 1937, SNSK established Sverdrupbyen to house workers for Mine 1b, and operation of the mine started in 1939. In 1938, Longyearbyen's first road was completed, between the town centre and Sverdrupbyen. Operations at Mine 2b, a different entrance to Mine 2a, started in 1939.

Svalbard remained unaffected by the German occupation of Norway in 1940. However, from 1941 the archipelago became of strategic importance in the supply chain between the Allied powers, as well as a source of badly needed coal. The Norwegian government-in-exile rejected a Soviet–British occupation; instead the British Army started Operation Gauntlet to evacuate Spitsbergen. On 29 August 1941, the entire population of Ny-Ålesund was evacuated to Longyearbyen, and on 3 September 765 people were evacuated from Longyearbyen to Scotland. Later, the last 150 men were also evacuated. With Longyearbyen depopulated, a small German garrison and air strip were established in Adventdalen, mostly to provide meteorological data. After the British Operation Fritham regained control of Barentsburg, the German forces left Longyearbyen without combat.

In September 1943, the Kriegsmarine dispatched two battleships, Tirpitz and Scharnhorst, and nine destroyers to bombard Longyearbyen, Barentsburg and Grumant. Only four buildings in Longyearbyen survived: the hospital, the power station, an office building, and a residential building. Longyearbyen remained unsettled until the end of the war, with the first ship from the mainland leaving on 27 June 1945.

 
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Country - Svalbard_and_Jan_Mayen
Svalbard and Jan Mayen (Svalbard og Jan Mayen, ISO 3166-1 alpha-2: SJ, ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: SJM, ISO 3166-1 numeric: 744) is a statistical designation defined by ISO 3166-1 for a collective grouping of two remote jurisdictions of Norway: Svalbard and Jan Mayen. While the two are combined for the purposes of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) category, they are not administratively related. This has further resulted in the country code top-level domain .sj being issued for Svalbard and Jan Mayen, and ISO 3166-2:SJ. The United Nations Statistics Division also uses this code, but has named it the Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands.

Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean under the sovereignty of Norway, but is subject to the special status granted by the Svalbard Treaty. Jan Mayen is a remote island in the Arctic Ocean; it has no permanent population and is administered by the County Governor of Nordland. Svalbard and Jan Mayen have in common that they are the only integrated parts of Norway not allocated to counties.
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