Meridian Column – Hammerfest

On the Fuglenes peninsula in Hammerfest stands a modest column with a big story. It marks the northern end of the Struve Geodetic Arc – a chain of 265 triangulation points stretching 2.820 km from here to the Black Sea, measured from 1816 under the astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve to find the true size and shape of the Earth. The column was erected in 1854.

Local knowledge: the northern end of the Struve Geodetic Arc was first planned for Nordkapp, not Hammerfest. But when the surveyors looked at the terrain in the 1840s, Nordkapp and the long way there proved too difficult for the precise measurements they needed. They chose Fuglenes in Hammerfest instead – and that is why this modest column marks the northern end of one of the greatest scientific surveying projects of the 19th century.

World Heritage: in 2005, 34 of the arc’s points in ten countries were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List – four of them in Norway, with the Meridian Column as the northernmost.

Tips for campers: the column stands in a public park in the built-up area of Hammerfest, about 3 km from the Hurtigruten quay – free and easy to see, with a view across the bay to the town centre. The municipality also has an exhibition about the meridian arc.