History
Svalbard was discovered in 1596 by two Dutch vessels seeking a northern route to China. On the 21 June Willem Barendszoon (Barents) went ashore on the largest island and named it Spitsbergen (the land of pointed peaks). In 1607 a British expedition under the command of Henry Hudson visited the islands and reported a wealth of whale and walrus which triggered an industry shared and contested by Britain, the Netherlands and others well into the 19th century.
Whaling gave way to trapping and coal mining involving several nations in a land known as “No Mans Land”.
Ownership and administration of the archipelago discussed at the Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Svalbard Treaty of 1920 whereby Svalbard, as it was named (The Cold Coast), became part of the kingdom of Norway. The Treaty, ratified in 1925, included nine nations, a further 26 nations joined later. The Norwegian Governor (Sysselmann) and administrative staff took up residence in Longyearbyen.
Since 1945 Norway and Russia have continued to mine coal in Svalbard. Trappers, all Norwegian, have dwindled in numbers. During the past fifteen years Longyearbyen has developed into a multi-faceted community including the Governors office, coal mine, harbour, hotels, tourist attractions, museum, university department and Norsk Polarinstitutt Svalbard office.
Scientific exploration began in Svalbard in 1827. The first research station was established by the Norwegian Polarinstitutt in Ny-Ålesund in 1968. Construction of the airport in Longyearbyen in 1975 made Svalbard the most accessible region in the high arctic and very attractive to scientists. During the nineteen eighties the idea of an international research community was mooted. In 1991 the UK, Germany and Japan opened research stations in Ny-Ålesund alongside the Norwegian station.