Talk:Longyearbyen

Origins of the name
So...what does Longyearbyen mean? My guess is "Town of the Long Year", but the article says it was named after John Longyear, which is English...so is it "The Longyear Town"? Does anyone know? Tomer TALK 21:39, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes indeed. The Longyear guy founded the place, the first years it was called "Longyear City". Then Spitsbergen became norwegian and they changed "City" to the norwegian word "Byen".


 * "byen" means "the town". In Norwegian, the definite article goes at the end. "en by" = "a town", "byen = the town".


 * Strictly speaking, byen, is the city/town. In Norwgian it can mean either.

Population
I changed the first line to read "population of about 1900" from 1700 based on the Gov. of the Islands official website. rhmoore 08:49, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Coat of arms


Perhaps the Longyearbyen lokalstyre (local government) coat of arms should be added together with an infobox? -- Nidator 11:37, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I updated the population of Alert, NU, Canada and added a reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ftcnt (talk • contribs) 16:05, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Airport passenger numbers
90,000 passengers in a year? Is there a source for this? It seems very high for such a small population. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.99.59 (talk) 13:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Statistics from Avinor can be found here: http://avinor.no/en/avinor/traffic/10_Traffic+statistics —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.191.4.66 (talk) 10:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Ban on death
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7501691.stm

I would have thought the fact that dying is illegal in this town should be mentioned —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.68.137.253 (talk) 14:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Done — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 12:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Someone do not trust the BBC, I say they should provide a more reliable source saying it is legal to die there. if not I will put the sentence back in the artcile.
 * Dying is not illegal. The BBC is a reliable source, of course - but in this particular instance it's clearly journalistic licence, not the literal truth! SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 15:50, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec) I think most understand that saying "it's illegal to die there" is silly. If you have a sudden heart attack and die, will you be arrested for breaking the law?  The actual concept behind your silliness - that it's too cold to bury dead people there so they have to move if they're gravely ill - is adequately explained already.  Your little catchphrase addition is just being goofy and you know it.    Doulos Christos   ♥ talk   15:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * we are not to decide what is literal truth or not in reliable sources. there are many stupid laws in the world, this seems to be one of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.116.219.82 (talk) 16:05, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The article doesn't even use 'illegal', it uses 'forbidden' — these two things are separate entities. (For example, many cultures and societies have 'forbidden' actions which are still technically legal in the super-society). Quaeler (talk) 16:21, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Found a relevant article that I was trying to think of earlier - Prohibition of death. —  Tivedshambo   (t/c) 16:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, let's write 'forbidden' instead of 'illegal' then. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.116.219.82 (talk) 16:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No. By all means go and edit Prohibition of death to add a mention of Svalbard, and by all means add a suitably worded link to that article here. But it's simply (a) silly and (b) untrue to say that it is either illegal or forbidden to die in Longyear or anywhere on Svalbard. In fact, I'd say the point is quite adequately covered by the phrase "those who fall gravely ill must be taken to another part of Norway..." SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 16:43, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, i took the 3 minutes to email the office of the Governor of Svalbard asking for clarification and this is response i received. From: 	xxx@sysselmannen.no Subject: 	VS: Question concerning statutes on Longyearbyen Date: 	February 17, 2009 11:18:06 AM CEST To: 	loki@xxxx

Hello Loki

Thank you for your email. I will try to answer it:

It is not forbidden to die in Longyearbyen. But the Norwegian government does not wish to organize the community so that people, who are so old that they need help and nursing, can stay here. There is no public domiciliary care here. All inhabitants in Longyearbyen have to keep an address on the main land, and when they get old and need help and nursing from the society, they have to move back to the main land.

Med vennlig hilsen / Best regards

Liv Asta Ødegaard Informasjonsrådgiver/Information Adviser

-Opprinnelig melding- Fra: loki der quaeler [mailto:loki@xxx] Sendt: 16. februar 2009 17:32 Til: Firmapost Emne: Question concerning statutes on Longyearbyen

Hello,

I'm attempting to edit a Wikipedia article concerning Longyearbyen and there is some dispute concerning a BBC article done in July, 2008 which stated that "It is forbidden to die in the Arctic town of Longyearbyen.".

Could you provide some clarification on this? Is there an actual current law which makes the act of dying in that town a criminal action? If so, could you point me to an online link giving the text of the law (Norsk would be acceptable, though of course English would be  preferable).

Thank you for any assistance, loki

So it looks like this is a non-issue; it's not forbidden to die (so, also, do not edit Prohibition of death). Quaeler (talk) 11:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Longyearbyen Municipal Council
The Longbearbyen Municipal Council was set up. There is a website. Some section about this should be put in. Also in the Svalbard article. Thank you-RFD (talk) 17:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Warmer July than indicated in climate table in article
I have checked the average daily high in Longyearbyen in July, using the data from Norwegian Meteorological Institute, which has made their data available at eKlima for everyone, you only need to establish an account. I used data for Longyearbyen from 1961-1976 (discontinued) and Svalbard airport 1977 -1990 (the airport is close to the town, 1961-90 is the internationally agreed base period). These are the official weather stations, and the data showed that: The average daily high in July for these 30 years was 8.6 C on average (see Geography of Norway). Warmest year was 1979, with average high of 11.7 C and the coldest was 1963 with average high of 6.6 C. Some of the latest years have been very warm so a later base period would almost certainly give warmer average high. So, why is the table wrong? Is it based on data from other weather stations, like Sveagruva? Orcaborealis (talk) 19:53, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Size of church
The article states "The congregational hall is 126 km2 (49 sq mi) while the sitting room is 112 km2 (43 sq mi).". 126 square km sounds a bit large for a church. Pictures of it seem to show a church of fairly normal size, but I can't find any reference on the exact size. Could it perhaps be 126 square _meters_? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mreftel (talk • contribs) 13:41, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This has been fixed.  ◦◦derekbd  ◦   ◦my talk◦◦  14:02, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

New York Times
I'll just leave this right here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/world/europe/a-harsh-climate-calls-for-banishment-of-the-needy.html Gamaliel  ( talk ) 18:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Avalanche and main picture
Eleven of the houses in the main picture of this article were destroyed by an avanlance that killed two people on December 19th 2015 (the two rows to the right, closest to the mountain side), so it should probably be replaced with a more up to date image.

Source: http://svalbardposten.no/index.php?page=vis_nyhet&NyhetID=6732 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.150.57.114 (talk) 21:13, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you, IP. I have updated the photo caption to say that many of houses were destroyed in the avalanche. Please, feel free to suggest a new photo that you think might be better for the article, but it needs to have a licence for free use (like photos on Wiki Commons. Iselilja (talk) 14:56, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Liverbirds Svalbard?
The article says "20 residents of the town are members of the Liverbirds Svalbard and regularly meet in the Svalbar on match days during the winter months." Could this sentence be amended to explain what the "Liverbirds Svalbard" is? Not everybody would know. I didn't. Sadiemonster (talk) 03:29, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

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IPA transcription
The IPA transcription in this article seems off, as I've never heard it pronounced like [jiː], only [jeː]. Can anyone confirm this pronunciation?

Orcaguy (talk) 20:13, 1 October 2017 (UTC)


 * As of recently, the text cited Bjarne Berulfsen's Norsk uttaleordbok, which is a well-known and respected resource, albeit a bit old. I agree with you, and have taken the liberty of updating the pronunciation. Unfortunately I don't have any good secondary or tertiary sources besides Store Norske Leksikon. Some primary sources below, which I hope are not geoblocked:
 * Svalbard 1974 timestamps 00:03 and 00:12
 * Abels tårn fra Huset, Longyearbyen (timestamp 00:24)
 * arj (talk) 18:29, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

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Updated with new climate normal 1991-2020
I have made a weather box with the new official 1991-2020 climate normals, data from met.no I also changed the claim about mildest part of Svalbard, as it is the west coast (not just Nordenskiold land) that is mildest (except for Bear Island). I hope the avg high/low will soon be released so they can be added. Also I suggest the 2000-2017 weather box be removed, and the last one with precipitation, as those have no purpose any longer, and there are too many weather boxes here now.Orcaborealis (talk) 17:20, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Good article missing bibliography for four years - how did that happen?
The bibliography was removed in 2016 with this edit. That was over 4 years ago. I put it back in a "new" references section. I moved the existing "references" to "notes."

The question is, how did this manage to not be sent to good-article-review with many of the references/notes rendered meaningless by the missing bibliography? davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  05:22, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Map glitch
The infobox map seems to be glitching and showing Longyearbyen in the wrong place. It also seems to change location based on which map you show/hide. Is that happening for anyone else? Relinus (talk) 21:27, 9 August 2023 (UTC)


 * You're right. It looks like an issue with the SVG. Also, the standard map template in the infobox is dumb because Longyearbyen doesn't even show up until you zoom all the way out to Earth, since it's not within Norway's (or even Europe's) bounding box. Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 21:49, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I fixed the standard map issue by only including Earth view, as the other two are pointless. There may be another view supported by the template and I'll take a look later. I've also noticed that there are two different coords given in the infobox so that should be resolved as well. Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 22:01, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
 * And finally, I found that there is an Arctic view for infobox maps, so I added that as default and left Earth as an option, which is I believe as good as that will get unless the the template supports a better bounding box, which I have not been able to find. Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 22:16, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I see, thanks for figuring that out! Relinus (talk) 23:13, 9 August 2023 (UTC)