( Norwegian; ), , or is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

and the

administrative centre An administrative centre 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 the administrative language, such as Belgi ...

Vardø Municipality Vardø (; ; ; ) is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Finnmark Counties of Norway, county in the extreme northeastern part of Norway. Vardø is the easternmost town in Norway, more to the east than Saint Petersburg or Istanbul. ...

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 ...

. The town is located on the island of

Vardøya , , or is an island in Vardø Municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The island is the location of the town of Vardø. The island sits about east of the mainland Varanger Peninsula. The island is connected to the mainland by the Vardø Tun ...

in the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; , ; ) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territorial waters.World Wildlife Fund, 2008. It was known earlier among Russi ...

, just off the coast of the large Varanger Peninsula. The town has a population (2023) of 1,727 which gives the town a

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), 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 geog ...

of . Vardø is the easternmost town in Norway (and in all the

Nordic countries The Nordic countries (also known as the Nordics or ''Norden''; ) are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe, as well as the Arctic Ocean, Arctic and Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic oceans. It includes the sovereign states of Denm ...

), located at 31°E, which is east of

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

, and

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

. The eastern part of Finnmark is in the same

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...

as the rest of the country, but it is more than an hour at odds with daylight hours. The largest industry in the town is

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

and

fish processing The term fish processing refers to the processes associated with fish and fish products between the time fish are caught or harvested, and the time the final product is delivered to the customer. Although the term refers specifically to fish, in ...

. There is a good port in Vardø, and another port in nearby Svartnes, on the mainland. The town is connected to the mainland by the undersea Vardø Tunnel which is part of

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 (town), Vardø in Norway by the Barents Sea, and it runs south through Finland, Poland, C ...

. Vardø Airport, Svartnes is located at the other end of the tunnel on the mainland.

History

The village of Vardø, on the island of

, was made important because of the

Vardøhus Fortress Vardøhus Fortress (), called "Wardhouse" in English historical navigations, is located in Vardø Municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. It is located in the town of Vardø (town), Vardø on the island of Vardøya on the Barents Sea near the mo ...

that was built on the island in the early 14th century. The village grew up around the fortress and became a major trading post between the Norwegians in Finnmark county and the nearby

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

ns. In the 17th century, Vardø was a centre of several high-profile witch trials, most notably the 1621 witch trial and 1662 witch trials.

Pomor trade The Pomor trade (; ) was carried out between the Pomors of Northwest Russia and the people along the coast of northern Norway, as far south as Bodø (town), Bodø. The trade went on from 1740 until the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The Pomor tr ...

was very important in the 18th century, and Vardø was often called the Pomor capital. Because of this, in 1789 the King of Norway granted Vardø town status as a

kjøpstad A (historically ''kjøbstad'', ''kjöbstad'', or ''kaupstad'', from ) is an old Scandinavian term for a "market town" in Denmark–Norway for several hundred years. Kjøpstads were places of trade and exporting materials (e.g. timber, flour, iron ...

. On 1 January 1838, the town and the surrounding rural district were established as the new municipality of ''Vardø by og landdistrikt'', meaning "Vardø town and rural district" (see

Formannskapsdistrikt () was the name of a Norwegian self-governing municipality. The name was used from the establishment these municipalities in 1838 until the name fell out of use in 1863. The municipalities had their legal basis from two laws enacted on 14 Jan ...

). This arrangement did not entirely satisfy the new formannskapsdistrikt law, so in 1839, the town was separated from the rural district to form its own town-municipality. Since the Vardø landdistrikt outside the town had too few residents (according to the law), one municipal government was shared between the two until 22 May 1868 when a royal resolution was passed making them completely separate and self-governing. On 1 January 1874, a small area of Vardø landdistrikt (population: 48) was transferred to the town of Vardø. On 1 January 1964, the eastern part of Båtsfjord Municipality (population: 621) was merged with the town of Vardø, forming the new (present-day)

Name

The town is named after the island on which it is located:

. The

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...

form of the name was . The first element is which means "

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, includin ...

". The first element was later replaced (around 1500) with which means "

cairn A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, t ...

". The last element is which means "

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

Climate

GLOBUS Radar

Since 1998, the town has housed

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

installations called GLOBUS I, II and III. Its official purpose is the tracking of space junk; however, due to the site's proximity to

, and an alleged connection between the ''GLOBUS'' system and US anti-missile systems, the site has been the basis for heated controversy in diplomatic and intelligence circles. An upgrade to the radar system, GLOBUS III, started construction in 2016 and became operational in 2023. The Russian military considers the radar station a threat to its national security.

References

External links