Amsterdam IslandZeeberg, JaapJan. 2005. ''Into the Ice Sea: Barents' Wintering on Novaya Zemlya—A Renaissance Voyage of Discovery''. Amsterdam: Rozenberg, pp. 121, 156. ( no, Amsterdamøya) is a small island off the northwest coast of West-

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norw ...

. It is separated from

Danes Island Danes Island ( no, Danskøya) is an island in Norway's Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean with an area of . It lies just off the northwest coast of Spitsbergen, the largest island in the archipelago, near to Magdalenefjorden. Just to the n ...

by the strait

Danskegattet Danskegattet is a strait in Albert I Land at Spitsbergen, Svalbard. It is located between Danes Island to the south and Amsterdam Island to the north, leading into Smeerenburgfjorden Smeerenburgfjorden is a fjord in Albert I Land Albert I La ...

. Its total area is 16.8 km². Its highest point is Hiertabreen, at 472 meters above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

. The percentage of the island covered in ice is 11.5%.

History

Amsterdam Island was first seen by

Willem Barents Willem Barentsz (; – 20 June 1597), anglicized as William Barents or Barentz, was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer. Barentsz went on three expeditions to the far north in search for a Northeast passage. He reached as far ...

in 1596. The

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

first occupied it in 1614 (the year in which it was probably named), building a temporary

whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industry ...

station on the island's southeastern promontory. In 1619 a semi-permanent station was constructed. It came to be called

Smeerenburg Smeerenburg was a whaling settlement on Amsterdam Island in northwest Svalbard. It was founded by the Danish and Dutch in 1619 as one of Europe's northernmost outposts. With the local bowhead whale population soon decimated and whaling devel ...

(Dutch for "Blubber Town"). The settlement went into decline in the 1640s, and was abandoned sometime before 1660.

References

*Conway, W. M. 1906. No Man's Land: A History of Spitsbergen from Its Discovery in 1596 to the Beginning of the Scientific Exploration of the Country. Cambridge: At the University Press. * Norwegian Polar Institut
Place Names of Svalbard Database
Islands of Svalbard Former Dutch colonies 17th century in the Dutch Empire 1614 establishments in the Dutch Empire Whaling in the Dutch Republic {{svalbard-geo-stub