Svalbard and Jan Mayen in the world (W3)

Svalbard and Jan Mayen ( no, Svalbard og Jan Mayen,

ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are two-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of ...

: SJ,

ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes are three-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas ...

: SJM, ISO 3166-1 numeric: 744) is a statistical designation defined by

ISO 3166-1 ISO 3166-1 (''Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes'') is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It ...

for a collective grouping of two remote jurisdictions of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and th ...

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group rang ...

and

Jan Mayen Jan Mayen () is a Norwegian volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean with no permanent population. It is long (southwest-northeast) and in area, partly covered by glaciers (an area of around the Beerenberg volcano). It has two parts: larger nor ...

. While the two are combined for the purposes of the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Art ...

(ISO) category, they are not administratively related. This has further resulted in the country code top-level domain being issued for Svalbard and Jan Mayen, and ISO 3166-2:SJ. The

United Nations Statistics Division The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), formerly the United Nations Statistical Office, serves under the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) as the central mechanism within the Secretariat of the United Nations t ...

also uses this code, but has named it the Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands. Svalbard is an archipelago in the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

under the

sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person ...

of Norway, but is subject to the special status granted by the

Svalbard Treaty The Svalbard Treaty (originally the Spitsbergen Treaty) recognises the sovereignty of Norway over the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, at the time called Spitsbergen. The exercise of sovereignty is, however, subject to certain stipulations, and no ...

. Jan Mayen is a remote island in the Arctic Ocean; it has no permanent population and is administered by the County Governor of

Nordland Nordland (; smj, Nordlánnda, sma, Nordlaante, sme, Nordlánda, en, Northland) is a county in Norway in the Northern Norway region, the least populous of all 11 counties, bordering Troms og Finnmark in the north, Trøndelag in the south, N ...

. Svalbard and Jan Mayen have in common that they are the only integrated parts of Norway not allocated to counties. While a separate ISO code for Svalbard was proposed by the United Nations, it was the Norwegian authorities who took initiative to include Jan Mayen in the code. Its official language is Norwegian.

Constituents

Svalbard

Svalbard is an archipelago in the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

about midway between mainland Norway and the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Magn ...

. The group of islands range from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The area is and there were 2,572 residents in 2009.

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern No ...

is the largest island, followed by

Nordaustlandet Nordaustlandet (sometimes translated as North East Land) is the second-largest island in the archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, with an area of . It lies north east of Spitsbergen, separated by Hinlopen Strait. Much of Nordaustlandet lies under l ...

and

Edgeøya Edgeøya (), occasionally anglicised as Edge Island, is a Norwegian island located in southeast of the Svalbard archipelago; with an area of , it is the third-largest island in this archipelago. An Arctic island, it forms part of the Søraust-S ...

. The administrative center is

Longyearbyen Longyearbyen (, locally �lɔ̀ŋjɑrˌbyːən "The Longyear Town") is the world's northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000 and the largest inhabited area of Svalbard, Norway. It stretches along the foot of the left bank ...

, and other settlements, in addition to research outposts, are the Russian mining community of Barentsburg, the research community of

Ny-Ålesund Ny-Ålesund ("New Ålesund") is a small town in Oscar II Land on the island of Spitsbergen in Svalbard, Norway. It is situated on the Brøgger peninsula ( Brøggerhalvøya) and on the shore of the bay of Kongsfjorden. The company town is owned ...

and the mining outpost of

Sveagruva Sveagruva (), or simply Svea, was a mining settlement in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, lying at the head of Van Mijenfjord. It was the third largest settlement in the archipelago (after Longyearbyen and Barentsburg). Around 300 workers ...

. The

of 1920 recognizes Norwegian sovereignty, and the 1925 ''

Svalbard Act The ''Svalbard Act'' of 17 July 1925 no. 11, normally referred to as the ''Svalbard Act'' ( no, Lov om Svalbard or colloquially ), is a law of Norway which governs the major aspects of the Svalbard archipelago. The law was passed by the Parliament ...

'' made Svalbard a full part of the Kingdom of Norway. The archipelago is administered by the

Governor of Svalbard The governor of Svalbard ( no, Sysselmesteren på Svalbard) represents the Norwegian government in exercising its sovereignty over the Svalbard archipelago (Spitsbergen). The position reports to the Norwegian Ministry of Justice, but it main ...

, which is subordinate to the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security. Unlike the rest of Norway (including Jan Mayen), Svalbard is a

free economic zone Free economic zones (FEZ), free economic territories (FETs) or free zones (FZ) are a class of special economic zone (SEZ) designated by the trade and commerce administrations of various countries. The term is used to designate areas in which c ...

and a

demilitarized zone A demilitarized zone (DMZ or DZ) is an area in which treaties or agreements between nations, military powers or contending groups forbid military installations, activities, or personnel. A DZ often lies along an established frontier or bounda ...

, and is not part of the

Schengen Area The Schengen Area ( , ) is an area comprising 27 European countries that have officially abolished all passport and all other types of border control at their mutual borders. Being an element within the wider area of freedom, security and ...

nor the European Economic Area.

Jan Mayen

Jan Mayen is a

volcanic island Geologically, a high island or volcanic island is an island of volcanic origin. The term can be used to distinguish such islands from low islands, which are formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs (which have often formed ...

in the

located at the border of the

Norwegian Sea The Norwegian Sea ( no, Norskehavet; is, Noregshaf; fo, Norskahavið) is a marginal sea, grouped with either the Atlantic Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, northwest of Norway between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea, adjoining the Barents Sea to t ...

and the

Greenland Sea The Greenland Sea is a body of water that borders Greenland to the west, the Svalbard archipelago to the east, Fram Strait and the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Norwegian Sea and Iceland to the south. The Greenland Sea is often defined a ...

. The single island covers an area of and is dominated by the tall

Beerenberg Beerenberg is a stratovolcano dominating the northeastern end of the Norwegian island of Jan Mayen. It is high and is the world's northernmost subaerial active volcano and the only volcano in Norway. The volcano is topped by a mostly ice-fill ...

volcano. The island's only population is a combined military and meteorological outpost that operated a LORAN-C transmitter at

Olonkinbyen Olonkinbyen (literally ''The Olonkin Town'') is the only settlement on the Norway, Norwegian island of Jan Mayen (aside from isolated cottage huts such as Puppebu). It was named after Russian-Norwegian explorer Gennady Olonkin. The only inhabit ...

. The

Norwegian Meteorological Institute The Norwegian Meteorological Institute ( no, Meteorologisk institutt), also known internationally as MET Norway, is Norway's national meteorological institute. It provides weather forecasts for civilian and military uses and conducts research in m ...

annexed the island for Norway in 1922. On 27 February 1930, the island was made de jure a part of the Kingdom of Norway. Since 1994, the island has been administered by the County Governor of

, with some authority delegated to the station commander. Before 1994, the

administered Jan Mayen.

Application

The ISO designation is congruent with an equivalent United Nations Statistics Division category and users of these classification systems may in some cases report separately for "Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands" instead of rolling up this information into the "Norway" category. Neither Svalbard nor Jan Mayen have their own flag or coat of arms, and the

flag of Norway The national flag of Norway ( nb, Norges flagg; nn, Noregs flagg; ) is red with a navy blue Scandinavian cross fimbriated in white that extends to the edges of the flag; the vertical part of the cross is shifted to the hoist side in the style ...

is used for both of them, both alone and as a group. An attempt to change the ISO code to just "Svalbard" has previously failed because of opposition from the

Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( Norwegian (Bokmål): ''Det kongelige utenriksdepartement''; Norwegian (Nynorsk): ''Det kongelege utanriksdepartement'') is the foreign ministry of the Kingdom of Norway. It was established on Ju ...

. However, for statistics use within population and trade, "Svalbard and Jan Mayen" essentially means just "Svalbard".

ISO 3166-2

ISO 3166-2:SJ is the entry for Svalbard and Jan Mayen in

ISO 3166-2 ISO 3166-2 is part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and defines codes for identifying the principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1. The ...

, a system for assigning codes to subnational administrative divisions. However, further subdivision for Svalbard and Jan Mayen occurs under Norway's entry, ISO 3166-2:NO: *

The

hierarchical administrative subdivision codes A geocode is a code that represents a geographic entity (location or object). It is a unique identifier of the entity, to distinguish it from others in a finite set of geographic entities. In general the ''geocode'' is a human-readable and s ...

for Svalbard is SJ.SV and for Jan Mayen is SJ.JM.

Top-level domain

By virtue of the

code SJ, Svalbard and Jan Mayen were grouped together and allocated the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes (geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains ...

(ccTLD) . Norid, who also administered the Norway's ccTLD, was given the responsibility for the .sj and

Bouvet Island Bouvet Island ( ; or ''Bouvetøyen'') is an island claimed by Norway, and declared an uninhabited protected nature reserve. It is a subantarctic volcanic island, situated in the South Atlantic Ocean at the southern end of the Mid-Atlantic R ...

's domain in 1997. Policy prohibits any registration with either of the domains, as institutions connected to Svalbard can use the domain. Norwegian authorities do not want to commercialize the domain resources, and therefore will not be sold to a third party.

References

Bibliography

* * {{Authority control Geography of Jan Mayen Geography of Svalbard Concession territories