Northernmost places on earth
When considering the northernmost place on earth , a distinction must be made with regard to the size or the population of the place.
Northernmost places
Permanent settlement
Longyearbyen on Spitzbergen , founded in 1906, is the northernmost larger settlement with 2040 inhabitants ( 78 ° 13 ′ N , 15 ° 38 ′ E ). Ny-Ålesund , also on Spitsbergen, is located at 78 ° 55 ' N , 11 ° 57' E further north, but has only around 30 permanent residents. Up to 180 scientists are employed there in summer.
Stations
The world's northernmost station on land is Alert in Canada , at 82 ° 30 ′ N , 62 ° 20 ′ W , in 2016 with 62 residents (2006 with 5 residents, 2001 with 75 residents). The polar night lasts over four and a half months at this latitude, from October 13th to March 1st. Also north than Ny-Ålesund is the station Nord in the northeast of Greenland at 81 ° 43 ' N , 17 ° 48' W . However, this military and weather station is manned by only about five people in winter. About 20 scientists can join in the summer.
On the Russian Franz Josef Land , the Nagurskaja border guard base , which is inhabited all year round, is also more north than 80 ° ( 80 ° 48 ′ N , 47 ° 40 ′ E ).
Natural settlements
The Greenlandic village of Siorapaluk ( 77 ° 47 ′ N , 70 ° 46 ′ W ) with 43 inhabitants (as of 2019) claims to be the northernmost natural settlement in the world, i.e. a settlement that was unplanned and not closed military or scientific purposes. Siorapaluk is about 50 kilometers northwest of Qaanaaq (Thule), the polar night lasts from October 28th to February 13th.
Previously there were several settlements in northwest Greenland that were even further north, but are now deserted. These include, for example, Etah ( 78 ° 19 ′ N , 72 ° 38 ′ W ), which was still inhabited in the mid-20th century. The place is a little further north than Longyearbyen, but more south than Ny-Ålesund. Around 1900, Etah was the starting point for numerous North Pole expeditions. However, the settlement had not been inhabited all year round since 1953 and was only used as a base for hunting in the summer. The polar night here lasts from October 26th to February 15th. Further north were Anoritooq ( 78 ° 33 ′ N , 72 ° 9 ′ W ) and Nunataaq ( 80 ° 2 ′ N , 66 ° 7 ′ W ). With the discovery of well-preserved ruins of winter houses in Qaqqaatsut ( 79 ° 5 ′ N , 66 ° 50 ′ W ) on the Pariserfjord in the northeast of Inglefield Land in the 1980s, it was possible to prove that this place was once inhabited all year round. According to current research, Qaqqaatsut was the northernmost natural permanent settlement in the world. The time when these three settlements were abandoned is unknown, but is believed to have been in the 19th century.
During a climatic optimum in the 1st millennium BC, there were permanent settlements of the so-called Independence II culture on the north coast of Greenland up to the north of the 82nd parallel . The remains of over 400 settlements and other sites have now been documented, C14 dates prove a settlement from around 800 to 400 BC. A remarkable thing about it is the polar night , which lasts almost five months there . The original names of these places are no longer known; today's names such as Qissivik in Pearyland have been re-coined in the course of research into these settlements.
City, metropolis, metropolis and capital
The most northerly capital has Iceland with Reykjavik to 64 ° 9 ' N , 21 ° 56' W .
Norilsk in Siberia to 69 ° 20 ' N , 88 ° 13' O with 176 559 inhabitants (2014) is the most northerly city in the world, while Saint Petersburg to 59 ° 56 ' N , 30 ° 20' O the northernmost million city in the world is.
Helsinki ( 60 ° 10 ′ N , 24 ° 56 ′ E ) is the northernmost city with over 500,000 inhabitants, whereas the Norwegian city of Tromsø at 69 ° 40 ′ N , 18 ° 57 ′ E is the northernmost city with over 50,000 inhabitants. Dikson ( 73 ° 30 ′ N , 80 ° 31 ′ E ) had about 10,000 inhabitants in the Soviet era , but only had 664 inhabitants in 2014. Since the decolonization in 1963, the northernmost place with city rights has been the Greenlandic Qaanaaq ( 77 ° 28 ′ N , 69 ° 14 ′ W ) with 621 inhabitants (as of 2019).
Honningsvåg in Norway (3,500 inhabitants, 70 ° 59 ′ N , 25 ° 59 ′ E ) has had town status since 1998 , before Hammerfest a little further south was also in Norway with 10,109 (as of 2013) inhabitants at 70 ° 40 ′ N , 23 ° 41 ′ E as the northernmost city in Europe. The settlements Chatanga ( Russia , 2,645 inhabitants, 71 ° 59 ' N , 102 ° 28' O ) and Utqiaġvik ( USA , 4,212 inhabitants, 71 ° 18 ' N , 156 ° 46' W ) are further north.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ At home in the world: Spitzbergen, Ny-Ålesund - Center of Norwegian Research. In: arte.tv. 2017, accessed March 23, 2019 .
- ↑ Ellesmere Island in: Microsoft Encarta
- ^ Sabine Barth: Greenland . DuMont Reiseverlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-7701-4423-6 , p. 185 .
- ^ Dirty Places 8 - Norilsk, Russia. In: spiegel.de . October 19, 2006, accessed October 5, 2019 .
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