Banak is a small

peninsula A peninsula is a landform that extends from a mainland and is only connected to land on one side. Peninsulas exist on each continent. The largest peninsula in the world is the Arabian Peninsula. Etymology The word ''peninsula'' derives , . T ...

Porsanger Municipality Porsanger (; ) is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Finnmark Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Lakselv. Other villages in the municipality include Børselv, Brenn ...

Finnmark Finnmark (; ; ; ; ) is a counties of Norway, county in northern Norway. By land, it borders Troms county to the west, Finland's Lapland (Finland), Lapland region to the south, and Russia's Murmansk Oblast to the east, and by water, the Norweg ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. It juts into the Vestbotn bay of the vast

Porsangerfjorden The Porsangerfjorden (; ; ) is a fjord in Finnmark county, Norway. Name The fjord is officially named ''Porsangerfjorden'' in Norwegian. It is also known informally as ''Porsangen'', but that is not an official name. The official Northern Sami ...

. Located immediately north of the village of

Lakselv ( Norwegian; ), or is the largest village and administrative centre of Porsanger Municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The village lies at the southern end of the large Porsangerfjorden. The village has a population (2023) of 2,224 which g ...

, the peninsula has Brennelvfjorden to its east and the river Lakselva to the east. Banak is the site of

Lakselv Airport, Banak Lakselv Airport (; ) is an international airport located at Banak, north of the village of Lakselv in Porsanger Municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. Co-located with the military Station Group Banak, the airport is owned and operated by t ...

and Banak Air Station. A temperature of was recorded in Banak on 30 July 2018, considered very unusual for a location in the

Arctic Circle The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the northernmost of the five major circle of latitude, circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth at about 66° 34' N. Its southern counterpart is the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic Circl ...

, as part of the 2018 European heat wave. On 29 June 2022, as part of the June 2022 European heat wave, a temperature of was recorded, reported as the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic circle. However, both

Verkhoyansk Verkhoyansk ( rus, Верхоянск, p=vʲɪrxɐˈjansk; ) is a town in Verkhoyansky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located on the Yana River in the Arctic Circle, from Batagay, the administrative center of the district, and nor ...

and

Fort Yukon, Alaska Fort Yukon (''Gwichyaa Zheh'' in Gwich'in) is a city in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska, straddling the Arctic Circle. The population, predominantly Gwich'in Alaska Natives, was 428 at the 2020 census, down from 59 ...

have recorded higher temperatures of and respectively.

References

Porsanger Peninsulas of Finnmark {{Finnmark-geo-stub