Vadsø

Vads? (Vesisaari in Finnish) is a city and municipality in the county of Finnmark, Norway. The municipality of Vads? includes the former municipality of Nord-Varanger. It forms the southern coast of the Varanger Peninsula, which is largely covered by birch forests on this more sheltered side (as opposed to the northern side).

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In the 1500s the settlement consisted of a fishing village and a church, located on the island of Vads?ya. The settlement later moved to the mainland. City priviliges was granted in 1833, and soon settlers came from Finland, which suffered from famine. Finnish was rapidly becoming the language of the majority, and this continued through decades. Even today Finnish is still spoken in some households. During World War II, Vads? suffered several air raids from the Soviet Union. However there is, unlike most places in Finnmark, a number of 19c. wooden houses preserved close to the city centre, notably the house of Esbensen, built by a Norwegian, and the house of Tuomainen, built by a Finn. On the island of Vads?ya you find the airship mast used by Umberto Nobile and Roald Amundsen for their expedition over the North Pole with the airship Norge in 1926, and used again on Nobile's flight with the airship Italia in 1928.

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Vads? is the administrative centre of the county of Finnmark, it has an airport and is also a port of call for the Hurtigruten.

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Finnish: Finnish may refer to:...

County: Originally, in continental Europe, a county was the land under the jurisdiction of a count. Counts are called "earls" in post-Celtic Great Britain and Ireland - the term is from Old Norse jarl and was introduced by the Vikings - but there is no correlation between "county" and "earldom." Rather, t...

Finnmark: Finnmark (Sami Finnm?rku) is a county in the extreme north of Norway, bordering Troms, Finland (Lapland), and Russia (Murmansk Oblast). Finnmark is also part of the Lapland region, which spans four countries, as well as the Barents Region....