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Svalbard is the Norwegian Arctic archipelago located about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole.
Three large islands dominate the archipelago - the Spitsbergen, Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya. The largest settlement is Longyearbyen.
The Svalbard Treaty (1920) recognises Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard and the 1925 Svalbard Act makes Svalbard a full part of the Kingdom of Norway.
Coal mining is the main industry on the archipelago. In addition, research and tourism have developed rapidly over the last years.
Svalbard has a major Russian settlement based in the mining town of Barentsburg.
Svalbard in 2005 had a population of approximately 2,400 people, of which about 55% were Norwegians and 45% Russian, Ukrainian and Polish. Over the last years, natives from several other countries have moved to the area to engage in the international research projects.
Arctic seed vault largest in the world
The Svalbard Seed Vault
The Svalbard “Doomsday” Global Seed Vault is surpassing 500,000 samples to become the most diverse collection of food seeds in history.
Just days after celebrating its second anniversary, the seed vault has this week received thousands of new seeds that will push its collection to more than half a million unique samples, NRK reports.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was established to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds from locations worldwide in an underground cavern built 120 meter inside the permafrost mountains.
The seed vault holds duplicate samples, or "spare" copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide. The seed vault will provide insurance against the loss of seeds in gene banks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises.
