How Did a Rainy Town on Norway's Edge Become a Trading Power for 1,000 Years?

It rains on about 200 days a year. It burned down again and again. And for a thousand years, the ships never stopped coming.

Bergen, on Norway's far west coast, has been a trading town since the 1020s. How did a rainy town hemmed in by mountains become one of Northern Europe's great ports, and stay one? We follow four clues: a sheltered harbour, a fish dried as hard as wood, a league of foreign merchants, and a city that refused to stay burned. Along the way we cover:
- the islands and the bay of Vågen that made a calm harbour on a wild coast;
- the "city of seven mountains", and why Ludvig Holberg wanted seven;
- the founding legend of King Olav Kyrre in 1070, and the older trading settlement;
- Bergen as Norway's first capital;
- stockfish from northern Norway and the royal monopoly on the northern trade;
- the Hanseatic League's Kontor at Bryggen, the 1523 attack on Scottish merchants, the Black Death, and Bergen's part in the Atlantic slave trade;
- the great fires (1198 to 1955), the Victual Brothers, the Battle of Vågen in 1665, and the 1944 Voorbode explosion;
- orographic lift, the Gulf Stream, and the Bergen School of Meteorology;
- today's Bergen: fish farming, shipping, offshore oil and gas, and Norway's busiest port.

## Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:13 The question
0:37 The Harbour
1:34 The King's Town
2:14 The Fish
2:48 The Merchants
4:08 The Fires
5:39 The Rain
6:22 The New Sea
7:29 The answer

The Long Answer: one question, eight minutes, the whole story. History, science, technology and strange events, explained clearly for curious people.

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## Sources
Narration based on the English Wikipedia article "Bergen" (CC BY-SA 4.0).

## Photo credits (Wikimedia Commons)
- Svein-Magne Tunli (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Bryggen at night (also used for the thumbnail); Bergen on a winter night; Bergen at dusk
- Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Bryggen, the old Hanseatic wharf; Bergen from Mount Fløyen; Bergen and the Fløibanen funicular; Håkonshallen, Bergenhus; Bergen Cathedral
- Anna Anichkova (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Bryggen under grey skies
- Acediscovery (CC BY 4.0) – Bryggen facades
- scott1346 (CC BY 2.0) – Bryggen from across Vågen
- JoachimKohler-HB (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Bryggen facades, close up
- Pål S. Schaathun, Pssmidi (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Bryggen at dusk
- Holger Uwe Schmitt (CC BY-SA 4.0) – A passage in Bryggen; Troldhaugen, Grieg's home
- Zairon (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Wooden gallery, Bryggen; a passage in Bryggen; the Hanseatic Museum, Bryggen
- Petr Šmerkl (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Vågen harbour; stockfish racks, Lofoten (3 photos); buekorps parade; Bergen in winter from Fløyen
- SureshHARDIYA (CC BY-SA 4.0) – The summit of Ulriken
- Bjoertvedt (CC BY-SA 3.0) – The Askøy Bridge; Sørfjorden near Bergen
- JopkeB (CC BY-SA 4.0) – A merchant's room, Hanseatic Museum
- Palickap (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Schøtstuene, the merchants' assembly rooms (2 photos)
- Txllxt TxllxT (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Replica of a medieval Hanseatic cog
- DXR (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Stockfish drying rack, Lofoten
- Svein Harkestad (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Bergenhus fortress from above
- Odd Roar Aalborg (CC BY-SA 4.0) – St Mary's Church; Henrik Ibsen statue, Den Nationale Scene
- Svend-Eirik H. Pedersen (CC BY 4.0) – Part of the Voorbode's anchor
- abbilder (CC BY 2.0) – Rain in Bergen
- Banja-Frans Mulder (CC BY 3.0) – Rain at the Fløibanen station
- Florette Hill (CC BY-SA 3.0) – A rainy day in Bergen
- Hannes Grobe (CC BY 3.0) – An offshore oil platform
- Flerg (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Offshore workers and a helicopter
- Jonas Smith (CC BY 2.0) – Hurtigruten ship at Bryggen
- Yair Haklai (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Cruise ships in Bergen
- Werner Wilmes (CC BY 2.0) – A cruise ship in Bergen
- P. E. Dressel (CC BY-SA 4.0) – A sailing ship off Bergen
- trolvag (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Nordnes and Ulriken from the sea
- Dietmar Rabich (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Palatine Hill, Rome
- Marius Vassnes (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Salmon farm, Austevoll near Bergen
- rheins (CC BY 3.0) – Bergen from Ulriken
- Verlassdiestadt (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Panorama from Fløyen
- Christian Bickel (CC BY-SA 2.0) – Torgallmenningen, Bergen
- CC0: Bergen defended by the Dutch fleet, 1665, print (Rijksmuseum); cloud over a mountain ridge (Cosmic Timetraveler atw)
- Public domain: Bergen, engraving after Hieronymus Scholeus, 1580s; Bergen fish market, c. 1890–1900; fish market in the rain, early 1900s; the Bergen fire of 1916 (3 photos) (unknown photographers); Vågen and the stock exchange, 19th century (Marcus Selmer); fishing boats in Lofoten, 1899 (Thorstein Eliasson Brændmo); Action at Bergen, 1665 (Willem van de Velde the Younger); the English attack at Bergen, 1665 (Arnold Bloem); Holberg statue, Vågsallmenningen (JoachimKohler-HB); Black Death (Hugo Simberg); Edvard Grieg, 1888 (Elliott & Fry); Bergen from the north, c. 1800 (John William Edy); base map data (Natural Earth)