Spitsbergen | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

Spitsbergen (ˈspɪ̀tsˌbærɡn̩; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: Vest Spitsbergen or Vestspitsbergen ˈvɛ̂stˌspɪtsbærɡn̩, also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway. Constituting the westernmost bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea. Spitsbergen covers an area of , making it the largest island in Norway and the 36th largest in the world. The administrative centre is Longyearbyen. Other settlements, in addition to research outposts, are the Russian mining community of Barentsburg, the research community of Ny-Ålesund, and the mining outpost of Sveagruva. Spitsbergen was covered in of ice in 1999, which was approximately 58.5% of the island's total area. The island was first used as a whaling base in the 17th and 18th centuries, after which it was abandoned. Coal mining started at the end of the 19th century, and several permanent communities were established. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 recognized Norwegian sovereignty and established Svalbard as a free economic zone and a demilitarized zone. The Norwegian Store Norske and the Russian Arktikugol are the only mining companies at Spitsbergen. Research and tourism have become the important supplementary industries, featuring among others the University Centre in Svalbard and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. No roads connect the settlements; instead snowmobiles, aircraft and boats serve as local transport. Svalbard Airport, Longyearbyen provides the main point of entry and exit. The island has an Arctic climate, although with significantly higher temperatures than other places at the same latitude. The flora benefits from the long period of midnight sun, which compensates for the polar night. Svalbard is a breeding ground for many seabirds, and also supports polar bears, arctic foxes, reindeer and marine mammals. Six national parks protect the largely untouched, yet fragile environment.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (36)

Spitsbergen

Bowhead whale

The bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) is a species of baleen whale belonging to the family Balaenidae and is the only living representative of the genus Balaena. It is the only baleen whale endemic to the Arctic and subarctic waters, and is named after its characteristic massive triangular skull, which it uses to break through Arctic ice. Other common names of the species included the Greenland right whale, Arctic whale, steeple-top, and polar whale.

Barents Sea

The Barents Sea (ˈbærənts , also USˈbɑːrənts ; Barentshavet, ˈbɑ̀ːrn̩tsˌhɑːvə; Barentsevo More) 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. It was known earlier among Russians as the Northern Sea, Pomorsky Sea or Murman Sea ("Norse Sea"); the current name of the sea is after the historical Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz. The Barents Sea is a rather shallow shelf sea, with an average depth of , and it is an important site for both fishing and hydrocarbon exploration.