A volcanic island between Svalbard and Iceland with no permanent residents — only meteorologists, and a glacier nobody visits
Jan Mayen is a volcanic island in the Norwegian Sea, roughly halfway between Svalbard and Iceland and equidistant from Greenland. It has no permanent civilian population — only a small rotating crew of Norwegian military and meteorological personnel (around 18 people at any time) manning the weather and radio station. The island is dominated by Beerenberg (2,277m), the world's northernmost active volcano, which erupted most recently in 1985. No tourism infrastructure exists; no regular transport connects it to the Norwegian mainland; reaching it requires chartering a vessel or arranging passa…
Jan Mayen was discovered by Dutch whalers around 1614 and named for the captain Jan Jacobsz May. Throughout the 17th century, Dutch and Basque whaling stations operated seasonally on its shores, and estimates suggest tens of thousands of bowhead whales were killed in the surrounding waters. The island was claimed by Norway in 1929. During World War II, a Norwegian weather station on Jan Mayen was captured by a German naval expedition in 1940 and recaptured by the Allies; weather data from Jan Mayen was critical to both Allied and German operations in the North Atlantic. The 1985 Beerenberg er…