Hammerfest (town)

Hammerfest or Hámmárfeasta is a town/city that is also the administrative centre of Hammerfest Municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. It is located on the northwestern coast of the island of Kvaløya, just north of the village of Rypefjord and southwest of the village of Forsøl. The 3.02-square-kilometre (750-acre) town has a population (2023) of 7,882 which gives the city a population density of 2,610 inhabitants per square kilometre (6,800/sq mi).
The town has an ice-free harbor, including the nearby island of Melkøya which is home to a natural gas processing station. It processes gas from the Snøhvit gas field in the Barents Sea. Rypefjord is a suburb to the south of the city. The main church for the city and municipality is Hammerfest Church. The "midnight sun" is above the horizon from 15 May to 31 July, and the period with continuous daylight lasts a bit longer. Polar night, on the other hand, lasts from 23 November to 19 January. The town is visited by cruise ships from all over the world each summer. In 2016, there were about 19,000 tourists who visited the city of Hammerfest.
Hammerfest claims to be the northernmost city in the world, although the title is disputed by the nearby Norwegian town of Honningsvåg (achieved town status 1996). The validity of the claim depends upon one's definition of a town/city. It may help to know that the Norwegian language does not distinguish between city and town. The closest translation for either term is the word by, meaning the translation from Norwegian to English is ambiguous. Although Hammerfest is further south than Honningsvåg, the town of Hammerfest has a population of nearly 8,000 people (and over 11,000 people living in the municipality). A Norwegian law from 1997 says a municipality must have over 5,000 residents in order for it to declare town status to one of its settlements. Parliament, however, did not make this provision retroactive. Honningsvåg was given town status prior to the 1997 law, so it is a town under current Norwegian law, making Honningsvåg the northernmost town in Norway. Thus, Hammerfest is the northernmost town with over 5,000 residents. This is a point of contention between the two towns who both claim to be the northernmost town in Norway. Utqiagvik, Alaska, population c. 4,000–5,000, is further north than both the Norwegian towns, but does not lay claim to the title of northernmost town. There are many other smaller "northernmost settlements" in the world.
Many grave sites dating back to the Stone Age can be found here. This location was an important fishing and Arctic hunting settlement for a long time before it was given market town rights by royal decree of Christian VII of Denmark–Norway in 1789.
During the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark–Norway abandoned its neutrality after a British Royal Navy fleet launched a pre-emptive attack on Copenhagen in 1807, allying with France against the Coalition. As one of the main centres of commerce and transportation in western Finnmark, Hammerfest was subject to a British naval blockade. Thus, upon the request of local merchants, the town received four 6-pounder guns from the government armoury in Trondheim. Subsequently, a 50-strong militia unit was formed to defend Hammerfest from a possible British naval attack. Local merchants formed the militia's officer corps, while the Sami and Kven peoples served as enlisted members of the unit.
On 22 July 1809, the British brigs HMS Snake and HMS Fancy approached the town. Before reaching Hammerfest, the two vessels had successfully attacked the village of Hasvik. The following battle between Hammerfest's militia, who had established two artillery batteries, and Snake and Fancy, which mounted a combined number of thirty-two cannon between them, was unusually intense and ended after the Norwegians ran out of gunpowder after about 90 minutes of combat and withdrew. Both Snake and Fancy had suffered a number of cannon hits and lost one man killed, a sailor who was buried at a local cemetery. During the battle, the town's populace evacuated elsewhere, and the crews of Snake and Fancy remained in Hammerfest for eight days after the Norwegian withdrawal. The crews sacked the empty town before withdrawing.
After the raid, Hammerfest became a garrison town with some regular troops and much improved and expanded fortifications. A small flotilla of cannon-armed rowing boats also operated out of Hammerfest for the remainder of the Napoleonic Wars.
Hammerfest was struck by a fire in 1890 which started in a bakery and wiped out almost half the town's houses. After the fire Hammerfest received donations and humanitarian assistance from across the world, with the biggest single donor being Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. The Kaiser had personally visited the town several times on his yacht and had great affection for the small northern settlement.
In 1891, Hammerfest became the first urban settlement in Northern Europe to get electrical street lights. The invention was brought to Hammerfest by two of the town's merchants who had seen it demonstrated at a fair in Paris.
After their victory in the Norwegian Campaign of the Second World War, the Germans soon fortified Hammerfest and used it as a major base. The importance of Hammerfest to the Germans increased dramatically after their invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The occupiers installed three coastal batteries in and around Hammerfest, one with four 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns on Melkøya island near the town, one with three 10.5 cm guns on a hill right outside the town and a final battery with casemated 13 cm (5.1 in) pieces on the Rypklubben peninsula near Rypefjord.
The main German U-boat base in Finnmark was in Hammerfest, serving as a central supply base for the vessels attacking the allied supply convoys to Russia. Luftwaffe seaplanes were based at an improvised naval air station in nearby Rypefjord. The garrison in Hammerfest was also protected by around 4,000 mines and numerous anti-aircraft guns.
During their long retreat following the Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation, the Germans no longer managed to transport troops by sea further east due to intensive Red Air Force raids. Thus Hammerfest became their main shipping port in Finnmark in the autumn of 1944.
The town of Hammerfest was bombed twice by the Soviet Air Forces. The first time, on 14 February 1944, the town was hit by explosive and incendiary devices, but little damage was done. On 29 August 1944 Soviet bombers launched a second airstrike, inflicting significantly more damage to buildings and infrastructure in downtown Hammerfest. Two ships were sunk in the harbour. The ships lost were the local transports Tanahorn and Brynilen.
The population was forcibly evacuated by the occupying German troops in the autumn of 1944 after a Soviet offensive at the northern extremity of the Eastern Front pushed into eastern Finnmark. All of Finnmark including the town was looted and burned to the ground by the Germans when they retreated in 1945, the last of the town having been destroyed by the time the Germans finally left on 10 February 1945. Only the town's small funeral chapel, built in 1937, was left standing. The Museum of Reconstruction in Hammerfest tells the story of these events and the recovery of the region. The Soviet troops in eastern Finnmark were withdrawn in September 1945.
Mines and munitions left over from the Second World War were found and destroyed as late as 2008.
The municipality called Hammerfest by og landdistrikt was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). It included the town of Hammerfest and the vast rural district surrounding it. The law required that all towns should be separated from their rural districts, but because of low population, and very few voters, this was impossible to carry out for Hammerfest in 1838. (This was also the case in the other towns in Finnmark: Vadsø and Vardø.) In 1839, the northern district (population: 498) was separated to become the new Maasø Municipality. This left Hammerfest by og landdistrikt with 2,024 residents. On 1 January 1852, Hammerfest was divided. The rural district outside of the town (population: 1,256) became the new municipality of Hammerfest landdistrikt. This left just the town remaining in what was once a vast municipality of Hammerfest. The town at this time had 1,125 residents. (The rural district was later divided into Sørøysund Municipality in the north and Kvalsund Municipality in the south.) On 1 January 1992, the town of Hammerfest (population: 6,909) was merged with the neighboring Sørøysund Municipality (population: 2,341) to form a new, larger Hammerfest Municipality.
The climate is Dfc (subarctic), just above tundra, but with daily means in July and August above 10 C (50 F). It features short, cool summers and long, cold (though mild for its latitude) winters.