Skip to content
EntityQ909089· pop 26· linked from 171 articles

Sveagruva (), or simply Svea, was a mining settlement in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, lying at the head of Van Mijenfjord. When occupied by the workers, it was the third largest settlement in the archipelago (after Longyearbyen and Barentsburg) but there were no permanent inhabitants. Around 300 workers living in Longyearbyen commuted to Sveagruva for work on a daily or weekly basis. The mine was operated by Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani. There is no road to Longyearbyen or any other settlements, so travel was by air from Svea Airport and coal transport by ship from a port sout

Weather now

cached 1314h ago
9°overcast clouds
77% 0.7 m/s OpenWeatherMap

7-day forecast

via Open-Meteo

Place details

Locality
Sveagruva
Region
Svalbard
Country
Norge
Population
300

via OpenStreetMap · GeoNames

Key facts

Settlement.official_name
Sveagruva
Settlement.image_skyline
Sveagruva 2019.jpg
Settlement.image_caption
Sveagruva in 2019
Settlement.pushpin_map
Svalbard
Settlement.pushpin_map_caption
Location of Sveagruva and Svalbard
Settlement.pushpin_mapsize
250
Settlement.subdivision_type
Country
Settlement.subdivision_type1
Region
Settlement.subdivision_name1
Svalbard
Settlement.population_as_of
2024
Settlement.population_total
0
Settlement.established_title
Founded
Settlement.established_date
1917
Settlement.postal_code_type
Postal code
Settlement.postal_code
9175

via Wikipedia infobox

~2 min read

Encyclopedic overview

3 sections
Contents
  • History
  • Weather and Climate
  • References

Sveagruva (), or simply Svea, was a mining settlement in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, lying at the head of Van Mijenfjord. When occupied by the workers, it was the third largest settlement in the archipelago (after Longyearbyen and Barentsburg) but there were no permanent inhabitants. Around 300 workers living in Longyearbyen commuted to Sveagruva for work on a daily or weekly basis. The mine was operated by Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani. There is no road to Longyearbyen or any other settlements, so travel was by air from Svea Airport and coal transport by ship from a port southwest. Sveagruva closed in 2020 and currently has no permanent inhabitants.

As of 2023, Sveagruva has been re-wilded to a pristine state. Almost every structure from its mining past has been removed in the largest operation of its kind.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Sveagruva” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

On the map

3 mapped locations