Barentsburg is the second-largest settlement in Svalbard, Norway, with about 300 inhabitants (2025). A coal mining town, the settlement is almost entirely made up of Russian nationals.
History
Rijpsburg, a now abandoned Dutch settlement on Spitsbergen on Cape Boheman (Bohemanflya), at the north site of Nordfjorden in the Isfjord, stood roughly diagonally opposite Longyearbyen. The Rotterdam-based (a navigation company) built it in 1920, using prefabricated huts, for the mining of coal. Twelve Dutch staff and 52 German miners started mining coal here that year.
The Dutch Spitsbergen Company, founded in 1920, bought a mine in Green Harbour from the Russians and mined coal from 1921 to 1926. The company renamed its settlement after the Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz. In 1932 the company sold the mine, including its settlement, to the Soviet trust Arktikugol.