Hammerfest is a town and municipality in the county of Finn mark, Norway. Hammerfest is the northernmost settlement of more than 5,000 inhabitants in the world. It is also the oldest town in Norway. Many gravesites dating back to the Stone Age can be found here. This location was a chief fishing and Arctic hunting settlement for a long time before it was accepted as a town in 1789. In 1891 Hammerfest was the first town in Europe to get electrical street lights. Hammerfest was persuasively evacuated by occupying German troops in World War II and then burned the town to the ground. The Museum of Reconstruction in Hammerfest tells the story of that events and the recovery of the town.
Hammerfest offers an abundance of things to do since becoming a hub for tourism. Such as sport and commercial fishing, scuba diving, whale watching, sailing, and ice fishing. The glacier on the Norwegian mainland is a popular hiking destination. There is also a daily boat to the spectacular North Cape, northernmost point on the continent of Europe.