Introduction

Geography

Narvik is located in Northern Norway, in the Ofot Fjord. The district of Narvik stretches from Vidrek to Bjerkvik, measuring a total of 2041 square kilometres. Like most of Northern Norway, Narvik is montaneous with 94% of its total area more than 150 metres above sea level. The district had 18548 inhabitants in 1997, 10000 of these living in the town of Narvik.

Narvik can very well be described as a hub in Northern Norway, mostly because the land is so narrow here that everything has to pass through Narvik to get between north and south. Efforts have been made lately to make Narvik a transport centre for both the north-south and east-west traffic.

West of Narvik you will find Lofoten and Vesterålen, east of Narvik you are confronted with tall mountains leading to Sweden, north of Narvik there is not very much until you reach Tromsø, the largest city in Northern Norway, about 250 kilometres north. South of Narvik is Bodø, about 200 kilometres away. A further 1200 kilometres brings you to Oslo, the capital of Norway.

Narvik is located at 68 degrees latitude 17 degrees lengthitude, north of the polar circle. The weather is therefore rather cool. While temperatures of -10 degrees Celcius is regular in winter (October-March), summertime comes with temperatures exceeding 20 degrees Celcius, although not every day. Instability is a typical weather feature of Narvik.

History

The history of Narvik as a place to live begins in the stone age, but we do not know very much about these people. We do know that vikings lived in this area. But the history of modern Narvik begins the 1870s, when the Swedish government began to understand the potential of the iron ore mines in Kiruna, Sweden. If you look at a map, you'll see that iron ore from Kiruna just had one problem: Where would they ship it? After all, the nearest Swedish port, Luleå, has lots of limitations: It is covered with ice all winter, it is far from Kiruna and it allows only medium-sized bulk freight vessels. The solution came when a Swedish company (Gällivarre Aktiebolag) built a railway to Narvik. Narvik's port is ice free thanks to the Golf Stream, and the port is naturally very good, allowing boats of virtually any size (208 metres of pier, 27 metres deep).

LKAB, the mining corporation, still ships the majority of its ore from Narvik, totally 25 Mt/year. The corporation is still a major factor in both as an employer and land-owner, but not nearly as important as it has been.

In 1940, during WW2, Norway was invaded April 9. But later on, the Allies came to Narvik and reconquered it - the first military defeat ever on Adolf Hitler's troops. Therefore, the Narvik name still rings a bell with old war veterans all over the world. Narvik was then abandoned by the Allies a month later, putting the Germans in charge again for the next five years.