21 Facts About Narvik

Municipality of Narvik was established on 1 January 1902 when the village of Narvik received status as a proper town and was separated from the large municipality of Ankenes.

On 1 January 1999, a small area of Narvik Municipality was transferred to the neighboring Evenes Municipality.

On 1 January 2020, the municipality of Narvik was merged with the neighboring Ballangen Municipality and the eastern half of Tysfjord Municipality to form a new, larger municipality of Narvik.

Narvik is named after the old Narvik farm, since the town is built on its ground.

Narvik was developed as an all-year ice free port for the Swedish Kiruna and Gallivare iron mines.

Related searches

The history of modern Narvik begins in the 1870s, when the Swedish government began to understand the potential of the iron ore mines in Kiruna, Sweden.

Narvik offered a port which is ice-free thanks to the warm Gulf Stream, and is naturally large, allowing boats of virtually any size to anchor, up to 208 metres long and 27 metres deep.

Port of Narvik proved to be strategically valuable in the early years of World War II and the town became a focal point of the Norwegian Campaign.

The town of Narvik is linked by rail to Sweden, but not to any other towns in Norway.

Winston Churchill realized that the control of Narvik meant stopping most German imports of iron ore during the winter of 1940.

The Admiralty argued that a naval bombardment of Norway would enable the troops to land safely, but General Mackesy refused to subject Norwegian citizens to such a bombardment, and instead he chose to land his troops near Narvik and wait until the snow melted to take over the town.

Since the Nazi German invasion of France had made Scandinavia largely irrelevant, and since the valuable troops assigned to Narvik were badly needed elsewhere, the Allies withdrew from Narvik on 8 June 1940 in Operation Alphabet.

Municipal council of Narvik is made up of 41 representatives that are elected to four year terms.

Narvik has well prepared slopes for alpine skiing, some of which end almost in the town centre.

Town of Narvik is a commercial centre for some of the neighbouring municipalities.

In 2005, the port of Narvik got status as Motorways of the Sea in the EU-system.

Present and historical key to land transportation to Narvik is the Ofoten Line railway from northern Sweden across the mountains to this port town.

One Narvik citizen lets other citizens use his Tesla cars at will.

Museum Nord - Narvik tells of the development of the ice-free harbour of Narvik and the rapid transformation of the town over the past century.

The building that houses Museum Nord - Narvik was erected in 1902 as the head office of the Norwegian state railway company, Norges statsbaner and was designed by architect, Paul Due.

Narvik appeared in Battlefield V, a First-person shooter video game, based on WWII.