Interesting facts on Svalbard

These islands were discovered by William Barentsz in1596 during the research of the Northeast Passage.

He saw the pointy mountains of the islands of the Northwest corner of Spitsbergen (the reason why he gave this name to the archipelago), at the height of Albert I Land.

Svalbard belongs to Norway, but the Norwegian sovreignty is subject to several limitations.

These are regulated by an international treaty, signed on 9 February 1920, following the treaty of Versailles after the First World War. This treaty was signed by a number of nations, among with also Italy (and Denmark, France, Japan, Norway, The Netherlands, USA, Sweden, UK with its domains of Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa).

Presently the nations which signed are more than forty.

The limitations related to the demilitarization of the islands (even if not completely), the obligation of nature conservation, the taxes which as very limited, a number of guarantees for the citizens of signing countries etc.

For us it is particularly interesting the fact that going to Svalbard allows us to prolong our stay in Norway by one year, where otherwise we would have to exit Norwegian waters. The link to this treaty is the following: http://www.lovdata.no/traktater/texte/tre-19200209-001.html