Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, constituting the northernmost part of Norway. Located north of mainland Europe, it is about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Spitsbergen is the largest island, followed by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya. The administrative center is Longyearbyen, and 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. The archipelago is administrated by the Governor of Svalbard. read more…
The Geiranger Fjord is a fjord in the Sunnmøre region of Møre og Romsdal county in Norway. It is in the municipality of Stranda. It is a 15-kilometre (9.3 mi) long branch of the Storfjord (Great Fjord). The small village of Geiranger is located at the end of the fjord where the Geirangelva river empties into it. read more…
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a secure seedbank located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the town of Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, about 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) from the North Pole. The facility preserves a wide variety of plant seeds in an underground cavern. The seeds are duplicate samples, or “spare” copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide. The seed vault is an attempt to provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large-scale regional or global crises. The seed vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement between the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen). read more…
You can’t very well take over the world from your parent’s basement, now can you? No, a proper arch-nemesis needs a sufficiently intimidating hidden base. Luckily, Norway is selling off its defunct Olavsvern Naval Submarine Base for a $17.5 million pittance. read more…
Fredrikstad (literally Fredrik’s Town) is a city and municipality in Østfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Fredrikstad. read more…
The city of Bern or Berne is the Bundesstadt (federal city, de facto capital) of Switzerland, and, with a population of 133,920, the fourth most populous city in Switzerland. The Bern agglomeration, which includes 43 municipalities, has a population of 349,000. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000. Bern is also the capital of the Canton of Bern, the second most populous of Switzerland’s cantons. read more…
Nyon is a municipality in the district of Nyon in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is located some 25 kilometers north east of Geneva’s city centre, and since the 1970s it has become part of the Geneva metropolitan area. It lies on the shores of Lake Geneva, and is the seat of the district of Nyon. The town has (as of December 2010) a population of 18,728. It is connected to the rest of Switzerland by way of the Route Suisse, the A1 Motorway and the railways of the Arc Lémanique. read more…
