Svalbard and Jan Mayen

Svalbard and Jan Mayen are two Norwegian territories in the Arctic, grouped under one ISO country code but governed separately. Longyearbyen, on the main island of Spitsbergen, is the largest settlement of the Svalbard archipelago, which lies about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole.

Willem Barentsz sighted Spitsbergen in 1596 while looking for a northern sea route and named it for its pointed mountains. English crews hunted walrus on Bear Island from 1604, Dutch whalers founded Smeerenburg in 1619, and whaling went on until the 1820s. Coal mining began early in the 20th century and created settlements such as Pyramiden and Barentsburg. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 recognized Norwegian sovereignty while opening the islands to trade by other signatories and limiting military use, and the Svalbard Act of 1925 made them part of Norway.

In 1928 the airship Italia of Umberto Nobile crashed on the ice off Foyn Island. After the war the Soviet Union mined at Barentsburg and Pyramiden, which was abandoned in 1998, and the Russian company Arktikugol and Norway's Store Norske are the only coal miners left. Research and tourism grew alongside them, with the University Centre in Svalbard and the Global Seed Vault, cut into rock near Longyearbyen to keep crop seeds frozen.

About 60% of Svalbard lies under glaciers, Newtontoppen is its highest peak, and national parks and nature reserves protect two-thirds of the land. Polar bears, Svalbard reindeer and Arctic foxes live there, and anyone leaving the settlements must carry a way to scare off bears. Jan Mayen, a volcanic island 600 km (370 mi) northeast of Iceland, has no permanent residents, only staff of the Norwegian Armed Forces and the Meteorological Institute, and its Beerenberg is the northernmost active volcano above sea level.