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High population turnover and increasing diversity in Svalbard
On January 1st, 2026, 2,512 people lived in Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund, and 392 people lived in Barentsburg and Pyramiden. The Svalbard population is characterized by a lot of immigration and emigration, and generally short residence times.
At the same time, the archipelago is experiencing increasing diversity of citizenship. At the turn of the year, 66 distinct citizenships were represented among the population.
This is reported by Statistics Norway.
The residence rate in Svalbard remains low. Of all residents of Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund at the beginning of 2025, just under 80 percent were still living there one year later. By comparison, the average population turnover in mainland municipalities was around 5 percent in the same period. This shows that a significant proportion of the population in Svalbard changes every year.
First seed deposit of the year in the Svalbard seed vault
The first seed sample deposit in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault 2026 took place this week.
Seeds from two new countries, Guatemala and Niger, were deposited for the very first time, and the seed vault also received its first deposit of olive seeds. A total of 7,864 seed samples from ten depositors came to the Arctic facility for long-term storage.