Vadsø ( sme, Čáhcesuolu ; fkv, Vesisaari) is a

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 ori ...

Vadsø Municipality Vadsø (; sme, Čáhcesuolu; fkv, Vesisaari) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark County, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Vadsø, which was the administrative centre of the former Finnmark county. Oth ...

Finnmark Finnmark (; se, Finnmárku ; fkv, Finmarku; fi, Ruija ; russian: Финнмарк) was a county in the northern part of Norway, and it is scheduled to become a county again in 2024. On 1 January 2020, Finnmark was merged with the neighbouri ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The town is the

administrative centre An administrative center is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune is located. In countries with French as administrative language (such as Belgium, Lu ...

of both

and

county, and is the largest town in

East Finnmark East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sunrise, Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from ...

. The town is located on the southern shore of the

Varanger Peninsula The Varanger Peninsula ( no, Varangerhalvøya; sme, Várnjárga; fkv, Varenkinniemi) is a peninsula in Finnmark county, Norway. It is located in the northeasternmost part of Norway, along the Barents Sea. The peninsula has the Tanafjorden to ...

, along the

Varanger Fjord The Varangerfjord ( en, Varanger Fjord; russian: Варангер-фьорд, Варяжский залив; fi, Varanginvuono; sme, Várjavuonna) is the easternmost fjord in Norway, north of Finland. The fjord is located in Troms og Finnmark co ...

. Part of the town lies on the island of Vadsøya. It is connected to the rest of the town on the mainland by a bridge. The town has a population (2017) of 5,064 which gives the town a

population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...

of .

Vadsø Church Vadsø Church ( no, Vadsø kirke) is a parish church of the Church of Norway in Vadsø Municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. It is located in the town of Vadsø. It is the main church for the Vadsø parish which is part of the Vara ...

is located in the town, and it is the seat of the

dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

of the Varanger prosti (

deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residenc ...

) which is part of the

Diocese of Nord-Hålogaland Nord-Hålogaland ( no, Nord-Hålogaland bispedømme) is a diocese in the Church of Norway. It covers the Church of Norway churches in Troms og Finnmark county as well as in the territory of Svalbard. The diocese is seated in the city of Trom ...

. The "

midnight sun The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the summer months in places north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle, when the Sun remains visible at the local midnight. When the midnight sun is seen in the Arctic, t ...

" is above the horizon from 17 May to 28 July, and the period with continuous daylight lasts a bit longer. The period of

polar night The polar night is a phenomenon where the nighttime lasts for more than 24 hours that occurs in the northernmost and southernmost regions of Earth. This occurs only inside the polar circles. The opposite phenomenon, the polar day, or midnig ...

lasts from 26 November to 17 January. Economy: the city has suppliers to the regional construction industries, including a

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...

works. One

bookstore Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librari ...

exists.

History

In the 16th century, the settlement consisted of a

fishing village A fishing village is a village, usually located near a fishing ground, with an economy based on catching fish and harvesting seafood. The continents and islands around the world have coastlines totalling around 356,000 kilometres (221,000 m ...

and the old

, located on the island of Vadsøya. The settlement later moved to the mainland. Township privilege was granted in 1833, and soon settlers came from

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

and the northern part of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, which suffered from

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...

. Finnish was rapidly becoming the language of the majority, and this continued for decades. Even today

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

is still spoken in some households. During the

occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany The occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany during the Second World War began on 9 April 1940 after Operation Weserübung. Conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on 10 June 1940, and Nazi Germany controlled Norway until the ...

, Vadsø suffered several air raids from the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, which bombed Nazi troops. However, there are, unlike most places in Finnmark, a number of 19th century wooden houses preserved close to the city centre, notably the house of Esbensen, built by a Norwegian, and the house of Tuomainen, built by a Finn. On the island of Vadsøya is the airship mast used by

Umberto Nobile Umberto Nobile (; 21 January 1885 – 30 July 1978) was an Italian aviator, aeronautical engineer and Arctic explorer. Nobile was a developer and promoter of semi-rigid airships in the years between the two World Wars. He is primarily remembe ...

and

Roald Amundsen Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen bega ...

for their expedition over the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Mag ...

with the airship ''Norge'' in 1926, and used again on Nobile's flight with the airship ''Italia'' in 1928.

Municipal history

The village of Vadsø was granted town status in 1833. In 1838, the town of Vadsø and the entire rural district surrounding the

Varangerfjorden The Varangerfjord ( en, Varanger Fjord; russian: Варангер-фьорд, Варяжский залив; fi, Varanginvuono; sme, Várjavuonna) is the easternmost fjord in Norway, north of Finland. The fjord is located in Troms og Finnmark co ...

were established as the new municipality of Vadsø (see

formannskapsdistrikt () is the name for Norwegian local self-government districts that were legally enacted on 1 January 1838. This system of municipalities was created in a bill approved by the Parliament of Norway and signed into law by King Carl Johan on 14 January ...

). In 1839, the western district was separated to become the new municipality of

Nesseby or (also unofficially ''Uuniemi'' in Kven) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Varangerbotn. Other villages in Nesseby include Gandvik, Karlebotn, Nesseby, an ...

. Then in 1858,

was merged back into Vadsø, and on the same date, the southern district of Vadsø (south of the

) was separated to form the new municipality of

Sør-Varanger Sør-Varanger ( sme, Máttá-Várjjat, fkv, Etelä-Varenki, fi, Etelä-Varanki, russian: Сёр-Вара́нгер/Syor-Varánger) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town ...

. A few years later in 1864, the western district of

was separated into a separate municipality once again. In 1894, the rest of the rural district surrounding the town of Vadsø was separated to form the new municipality of

Nord-Varanger Nord-Varanger is a former municipality in Finnmark county in Norway. The municipality existed from 1894 until its dissolution in 1964. It was located in the present-day Vadsø Municipality on the southern half of the Varanger Peninsula, east o ...

. This left just the town of Vadsø left in the municipality of Vadsø. This remained the case until 1 January 1964, when the municipality of

was merged back together with the town of Vadsø to form the present-day

Name

The name of the town comes from the island Vadsøya, since that was the original townsite. The

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

form of the name was ''Vatnsøy''. The first element is the

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...

of ''vatn'' which means "

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

" and the last element is ''øy'' which means "

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

". Therefore the meaning of the name is "the island with drinking water".

Transportation

The

European route E75 European route E 75 is part of the International E-road network, which is a series of main roads in Europe. The E 75 starts at the town of Vardø in Norway by the Barents Sea and it runs south through Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, S ...

highway goes through the town. The

Hurtigruten ''Hurtigruten'' (), formally Kystruten Bergen-Kirkenes ("coastal route Bergen- Kirkenes"), is a Norwegian public coastal route transporting passengers that travel locally, regionally and between the ports of call, and also cargo between ports no ...

coastal express ships regularly stop at the pier on Vadsøya island in the town. Vadsø Airport is located just east of the town in the village of

Kiby Kiby is a village in Vadsø Municipality, Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. It is located along the Varangerfjorden and European route E75, about east of the town of Vadsø. The fishing village A fishing village is a village, usually locate ...

Media

The newspaper '' Varangeren'' was published in Vadsø from 2007 to 2012.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vadso (town) Cities and towns in Norway Vadsø Populated places of Arctic Norway Port cities and towns in Norway