Longyearbyen Plataaberget IMG 3014
Longyearbyen (, locally [ˈlɔ̀ŋjɑrˌbyːən]; "The Longyear Town") is the world's northernmost settlements, northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000 and the largest inhabited area of Svalbard, Norway. It stretches along the foot of the bank (geography), left bank of the Longyear Valley and on the shore of Adventfjorden, the short estuary leading into Isfjorden (Svalbard), Isfjorden on the west coast of Spitsbergen, the island's broadest inlet. As of 2002 Longyearbyen Community Council became an official municipalities of Norway, 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 Oper ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an origin with the German word , the Dutch word , and the Old Norse . The original Proto-Germanic word, *''tūnan'', is thought to be an early borrowing from Proto-Celtic *''dūnom'' (cf. Old Irish , Welsh ). The original sense of the word in both Germanic and Celtic was that of a fortress or an enclosure. Cognates of ''town'' in many modern Germanic languages designate a fence or a hedge. In English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed, and through which a track must run. In England, a town was a small community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications, and built a palisade or stockade instead. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, mor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arctic Coal Company
Arctic Coal Company was a coal mining company that operated mines at Longyearbyen (then Longyear City) in Svalbard, Norway, between 1906 and 1916. The American industrialist John Munro Longyear visited Spitsbergen as a tourist in 1901, where he met with an expedition prospecting for coal. He returned to Spitsbergen 1903, 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, installed William D. Munroe as general manager, 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 having built docks and housing. The company had American administration, but mostly Norwegian laborers, and named the town Longyear City.Holm (1999): 46 Coal was transported the from the mine to the port using an aerial tram ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Svalbard Church
Svalbard Church ( no, Svalbard kirke) is a parish church of the Church of Norway in Svalbard municipality in Norway. It is located in the village of Longyearbyen. It is the church for the Svalbard parish which is part of the Tromsø domprosti (arch-deanery) in the Diocese of Nord-Hålogaland. The red, wooden church was built in a rectangular design in 1958 using plans drawn up by the architect Hans Magnus. The church seats about 140 people. It was the northernmost church in the world until 2017 when the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church was built in Nagurskoye air force base in Russia. The very isolated church has one minister and two other employees. Svalbard Church is the only church in Svalbard archipelago, but there is a Russian Orthodox chapel in Barentsburg. The Svalbard Church minister visits other communities on Svalbard including Svea and Ny-Ålesund. History The first church at Longyearbyen was built from July to August in 1921. It was consecrated on 28 August 192 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Svalbard Airport, Longyear
Svalbard Airport ( no, Svalbard lufthavn; ) is the main airport serving Svalbard in Norway. It is northwest of Longyearbyen on the west coast, and is the northernmost airport in the world with scheduled public flights. The first airport near Longyearbyen was constructed during World War II. In 1959, it was first used for occasional flights, but could only be used a few months a year. Construction of the new airport at Hotellneset started in 1973, and the airport was opened on 2 September 1975. It is owned and operated by state-owned Avinor. In 2014, the airport handled 154,261 passengers. Scandinavian Airlines operates daily flights to Tromsø and Oslo in mainland Norway. Lufttransport provides services to the two other airports on Svalbard: Ny-Ålesund and Svea, using Dornier 228 turboprop aircraft. There are also regular charter flights. History Adventdalen The first airstrip on Svalbard was constructed in Adventdalen, near Longyearbyen, by the Luftwaffe during World War II. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Svalbard Satellite Station
Svalbard Satellite Station ( no, Svalbard satellittstasjon) or SvalSat is a satellite ground station located on Platåberget near Longyearbyen in Svalbard, Norway. Opened in 1997, it is operated by Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT), a joint venture between Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and the Norwegian Space Centre (NSC). SvalSat and KSAT's Troll Satellite Station (TrollSat) in Antarctica are the only ground stations that can see a low altitude polar orbiting satellite (e.g., in sun-synchronous orbit) on every revolution as the earth rotates. As of December 2019 the facility consists of almost 100 multi-mission and customer-dedicated antennas which operate in the C, L, S, X and K bands. The station provides ground services to more satellites than any other facility in the world. Customers with their own installations include the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Svalbard Global Seed Vault
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault ( no, Svalbard globale frøhvelv) is a secure backup facility for the world's crop diversity on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago. The Seed Vault provides long-term storage of duplicates of seeds conserved in genebanks around the world. This provides security of the world's food supply against the loss of seeds in genebanks due to mismanagement, accident, equipment failures, funding cuts, war, sabotage, disease and natural disasters. The Seed Vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement among the Norwegian government, the Crop Trust, and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen). The Norwegian government entirely funded the Seed Vault's approximately ( in 2008) construction cost. Norway and the Crop Trust pay for operational costs. Storing seeds in the vault is free to depositors. The vault has been depicted in several films and other art forms, including Marcus Paus’ children' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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University Centre In Svalbard
The University Centre in Svalbard ( no, Universitetssenteret på Svalbard AS; UNIS) is a Norwegian state-owned limited company that is involved in research and provides some higher education in Arctic studies. The company is wholly owned by the Ministry of Education and Research, and the universities of Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø, NTNU and NMBU appoint the board of directors. It is led by a director appointed by the board for a four-year term. The centre is the world’s northernmost research and higher education institution, in Longyearbyen at 78° N latitude. The courses offered fall into five main science disciplines: Arctic biology, Arctic geology, Arctic geophysics, Arctic technology and Arctic safety. Organization The centre was established in 1993 in Longyearbyen, a town of 2,100 inhabitants on the western coast of Spitsbergen island. Despite its name, it is not a university (a status that can only be conferred by the government under certain conditions to larger instituti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tourism
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (other), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (other), tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity only", as people "travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure and not less than 24 hours, business and other purposes". Tourism can be Domestic tourism, domestic (within the traveller's own country) or International tourism, international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country's balance of payments. Tourism numbers declined as a result of a strong economic slowdown (the late-2000s recession) between the second half of 2008 and the end of 2009, and in consequence of t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sveagruva
Sveagruva (), or simply Svea, was a mining settlement in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, lying at the head of Van Mijenfjord. It was the third largest settlement in the archipelago (after Longyearbyen and Barentsburg). Around 300 workers living in Longyearbyen commuted to Sveagruva for work on a daily or weekly basis. The mine was operated by Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani. There is no road to Longyearbyen or any other settlements, so travel is done by air from Svea Airport and coal transport by ship from a port southwest. Sveagruva closed in 2017 and currently has no permanent inhabitants. History The town was established in 1917 by Swedes. It was thereafter destroyed in 1944, but quickly re-established after World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two oppo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Company Town
A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and recreation facilities. They are usually bigger than a model village ("model" in the sense of an ideal to be emulated). Some company towns have had high ideals, but many have been regarded as controlling and/or exploitative. Others developed more or less in unplanned fashion, such as Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, United States, one of the oldest, which began as a Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company mining camp and mine site nine miles (14.5 km) from the nearest outside road. Overview Traditional settings for company towns were where extractive industries – coal, metal mines, lumber – had established a monopoly franchise. Dam sites and war-industry camps founded other company towns. Since company stores often had a monopoly in company t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Operation Zitronella
Operation Zitronella (Operation Lemon Flavour), also known as (Operation Sicily), was an eight-hour German raid on Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard Archipelago, on 8 September 1943. The battleships (in its only offensive action) and , plus nine destroyers, sailed to the archipelago, bombarded Allied-occupied settlements in Isfjorden and covered a landing party. Six Norwegians were killed and 31 were taken prisoner; sixteen Germans were wounded, one dying of his wounds. Background Svalbard The Svalbard Archipelago is in the Arctic Ocean, from the North Pole and a similar distance to Norway to the south. The islands are mountainous, with permanently snow-covered peaks, some glaciated; there are occasional river terraces at the bottom of steep valleys and some coastal plains. In winter, the islands are covered in snow and the bays ice over. To the west, Spitzbergen Island has several large fiords along its west coast; Isfjorden being up to wide. The Gulf Stream warms the waters ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |