(also , ) is a
town and a
municipality|Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties , and 430 municipalities...
in
Finnmarkor Finnmárku is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway. By land it borders Troms county to the west, Finland to the south and Russia to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea to the northwest, and the Barents Sea to the north and northeast.The county was formerly known as Finmarkens...
county||-|Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties . The counties form the primary first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 431 municipalities...
in the extreme northeast part of
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
.
Vardø was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see
formannskapsdistriktFormannskapsdistrikt was the name for a Norwegian local self-government districts put into force in 1838. This system of municipality was created in a bill approved by the Storting and signed into law by King Carl Johan on 14 January 1837...
). The law required that all cities should be separated from their rural districts, but because of a low population and very few voters, this was impossible to carry out for Vardø in 1838.
(also , ) is a
town and a
municipality|Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties , and 430 municipalities...
in
Finnmarkor Finnmárku is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway. By land it borders Troms county to the west, Finland to the south and Russia to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea to the northwest, and the Barents Sea to the north and northeast.The county was formerly known as Finmarkens...
county||-|Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties . The counties form the primary first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 431 municipalities...
in the extreme northeast part of
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
.
Vardø was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see
formannskapsdistriktFormannskapsdistrikt was the name for a Norwegian local self-government districts put into force in 1838. This system of municipality was created in a bill approved by the Storting and signed into law by King Carl Johan on 14 January 1837...
). The law required that all cities should be separated from their rural districts, but because of a low population and very few voters, this was impossible to carry out for Vardø in 1838. (See also
Hammerfestis a city and municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The municipality encompasses parts of three islands: Kvaløya, Sørøya, and Seiland. Hammerfest was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838...
and
Vadsøis a city and municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The city is the administrative centre of the municipality and the county of Finnmark....
.)
The rural district of Vardø (
Vardø herred–renamed
BåtsfjordBåtsfjord is a municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Båtsfjord.Vardø herred was separated from the town of Vardø in 1868 to be a municipality of its own. In 1957, the municipality was renamed Båtsfjord...
in 1957) was separated from the city in 1868. The eastern part of Båtsfjord was, however, merged back into the municipality of Vardø on 1 January 1964.
Name
The
Old NorseOld Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
form of the name was
Vargøy. The first element is
vargr which means "wolf" and the last element is
øy which means "
islandAn island or isle is any piece of land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls are called islets. A key or cay is another name for a small island or islet. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot, .There are two main types of islands:...
". The first element was later replaced (around 1500) with
varða which means "
cairnA cairn is a manmade pile of stones, often in a conical form. They are usually found in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops or near waterways.-Purpose:...
".
Coat-of-arms
The
coat-of-armsA coat of arms, more properly called an armorial achievement, armorial bearings or often just arms for short, in European tradition, is a design belonging to a particular person and used by them in a wide variety of ways. Historically, they were used by knights to identify them apart from enemy...
is from 1898. Its borders are drawn using the national colours: red, white, and blue. The border frames the shield, and the centre field shows a complex scene incorporating a
sunriseSunrise is the instant at which the upper edge of the Sun appears above the horizon in the east. Sunrise should not be confused with dawn, which is the point at which the sky begins to lighten, some time before the sun itself appears, ending twilight...
with rays, two
fishing boatsA fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to catch fish in the sea, or on a lake or river. Many different kinds of vessels are used in commercial, artisanal and recreational fishing....
with crews, the
seaA sea is any large amount of water filled with animals such as crabs, whales, sharks, and fish, but there is inconsistency as to its precise definition and application. Most commonly, a sea may refer to a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, but it is also used sometimes for a...
with waves, and a large
codCod is the common name for the genus Gadus, belonging to the family Gadidae, and is also used in the common name for various other fishes. Cod is a popular food with a mild flavor, low fat content and a dense, flaky white flesh. Cod livers are processed to make cod liver oil, an important source of...
. In the
chiefA chief is a term used in heraldic blazon to describe a charge on a coat of arms that takes the form of a band running horizontally across the top edge of the shield. Writers disagree in how much of the shield's surface is to be covered by the chief, ranging from one-fourth to one-third...
we find the year of the town's foundation, 1787, together with the words
"Vardöensis Insignia Urbis", meaning "the seal of the town of Vardø". In the lower part of the arms, we find the town motto:
"Cedant Tenebræ Soli", meaning "Darkness shall give way to the sun."
Geography and climate
Vardø is the easternmost town in Norway, east of
Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd and Leningrad...
,
KievKiev or Kyiv , is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300...
and
IstanbulIstanbul is the largest city in Turkey and fifth largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.6 million. Istanbul is also a megacity, as well as the cultural and financial centre of Turkey. The city covers 39 districts of the Istanbul province...
. The eastern part of Finnmark is in the same
time zoneA time zone is a region of the earth that has uniform standard time, usually referred to as the local time. By convention, time zones compute their local time as an offset from UTC . Local time is UTC plus the current time zone offset for the considered location.-Introduction:Time zones are...
as the rest of the country, even if it is more than an hour at odds with daylight hours.
The
port||-||-||-||-||-||-||-||-|}A port is a facility for receiving ships and/or transferring cargo. It is usually found at the edge of an ocean, sea, river, or lake. The best ports have deep water in channels or berths, and protection from the wind and waves...
of Vardø, on the
Barents SeaThe Barents Sea is a part of the Arctic Ocean located north of Norway and Russia. It is a rather deep shelf sea , bordered by the shelf edge towards the Norwegian Sea in the west, the island of Svalbard in the northwest, and the islands of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya in the northeast and...
, remains
iceIce is a solid phase, usually crystalline, of a non-metallic substance that is liquid or gas at room temperature, such as carbon dioxide ice , ammonia ice, or methane ice. However, the predominant use of the term ice is for water ice, technically restricted to one of the 15 known crystalline phases...
-free all year round thanks to the effect of the warm
North Atlantic driftNorth Atlantic Drift is:* An ocean current that continues from the North Atlantic Current* An album by Ocean Colour Scene: North Atlantic Drift...
. Vardø is usually referred to as Norway's only mainland town in the Arctic climate zone, although this is not strictly correct since the town is located on an island about off the northeastern coast of the
Varanger PeninsulaVaranger Peninsula is a peninsula in Finnmark, north-eastern Norway, by the Barents Sea. The peninsula has the Tanafjord to the west, the Varangerfjord to the south and the Barents Sea to the north and east. Vadsø, Båtsfjord, Berlevåg, Vardø and Unjárga - Nesseby are the municipalities sharing the...
. In July, the 24-hr average temperature is only , while the January average is a modest .
Birdlife
The municipality of Vardø with its seabird colonies of Hornøy and Reinøy are amongst the most interesting on this part of the coast. There is a small breeding population of Brunnich’s Guillemot as well as larger numbers of Razorbill and Common Guillemot.
Transportation
The island is connected to the mainland via an
undersea tunnelAn undersea tunnel is a tunnel which is partly or wholly constructed under a body of water. They are often used where building a bridge or operating a ferry link is impossible, or to provide competition for existing bridges or ferry links...
(Norway's first such structure). The town's airport,
Vardø Airport, SvartnesVardø Airport, Svartnes is a regional airport serving Vardø in Finnmark, Norway. In 2005 Vardø Airport had 10,408 passengers. It is operated by Avinor.-Service:...
, and the settlement of Svartnes are located on the mainland opposite the tunnel entrance. Vardø is a port of call on Norway's
HurtigrutenHurtigruten or Hurtigruta is a Norwegian passenger and freight line with daily sailings along Norway's spectacular western and northern coast. Ships sail almost the entire length of the country, completing the roundtrip journey in 11 days...
ferry service. The town is the northern termination of European route
E75The E 75 is part of the International E-road network, which is a series of main roads in Europe.The E 75 starts from Vardø, Norway in the Barents Sea and runs south through Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia and Macedonia to Sitia, Greece on the island of Crete in...
, which starts in
SitiaSitia refers both to a port town, with 8,900 inhabitants and a municipality, with 14,338 inhabitants in the far east of Crete, in the prefecture of Lasithi. It lies to the east of Agios Nikolaos and to the northeast of Ierapetra. The town is one of the economic centers of the Lasithi region....
,
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
.
Economy and tourism
FishingFishing is the activity of catching fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
and seafood processing remain Vardø's major sources of income, although
tourismTourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other...
is starting to become an important economic factor.
Vardø's tourist attractions include the
Vardøhus FestningVardøhus Fortress is located in Vardø municipality in the county of Finnmark on the Barents Sea on the mouth of the Varangerfjord in north-eastern Norway near the Russian border.-History:...
, a fortress dating back to the late 13th century (although the present structure dates from 1734); several
sea bird colonies; two museums: one about the Pomor trade and the other about local history and birdlife; and remnants of German fortifications from
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The
Yukigassenis a snowball fighting-competition from Japan. Today there are annual tournaments in Sobetsu, Hokkaidō in Japan, Kemijärvi in Finland, Vardø in Norway and Mt Buller in Australia. The first Swedish competition took place in Luleå on February 12th 2009....
competition in Vardø is unique in Norway.
Vardøhus Festning is home to two
rowanThe rowans or mountain-ashes are shrubs or small trees. They are native throughout the cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with the highest species diversity in the mountains of western China and the Himalaya, where numerous apomictic microspecies occur...
trees which are diligently nurtured and warmed in winter since these trees cannot normally survive in Vardø's cold climate, north of the Arctic tree line. Originally, seven trees were planted in 1960; the one that survived managed to blossom twice, in 1974 and 1981. The tree finally succumbed to cold weather in 2002, but two new saplings have been planted in its place.
Globus II Radar
Since 1998, the town has housed a
radarRadar is an object detection system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The term RADAR was coined in 1941 as an acronym for RAdio Detection And...
installation called
Globus IIGlobus II is a radar station located at in Vardø, Norway, near the Russian border.-Purpose and use:The site is administrated by the Norwegian Intelligence Service who state the radar is used for:*Space surveillance...
. Its official purpose is the tracking of space junk; however, due to the site's proximity to
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, and an alleged connection between the
Globus II system and
USThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
anti-missile systems, the site has been the basis for heated controversy in diplomatic and intelligence circles.
External links