Svalbard's gun law requires residents to carry rifles when leaving town — there are roughly 3,000 polar bears and only 2,500 humans on the archipelago. This quiz covers the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, the world's northernmost civilian settlement at Longyearbyen, the Global Seed Vault, and the icy expanse of Spitsbergen between 74° and 81° north.
Each round presents 10 randomized questions from a pool of 50, with four multiple-choice options and instant feedback after every answer. Your final score comes with a performance tier and shareable results.
You'll explore the Svalbard Treaty's odd visa-free regime, settlements like Longyearbyen, Barentsburg, Ny-Ålesund, and the Soviet ghost town of Pyramiden, the polar night and midnight sun, the Doomsday Seed Vault opened in 2008, polar bears and Svalbard reindeer, the strange burial ban, and the territory's role as a center of Arctic research.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is built 130 meters into a sandstone mountain on Spitsbergen, near Longyearbyen at about 78°N. It opened on February 26, 2008, and stores over 1.3 million seed samples at –18°C as a backup for the world's crop diversity.
Polar bears outnumber people on Svalbard, with roughly 3,000 bears and around 2,500 residents. Anyone leaving the settlements is legally required to carry a rifle and know how to use it, in case of an encounter.
Under the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, citizens of any signatory country can move there to live or work without a visa or residence permit, as long as they can support themselves. Svalbard does not provide welfare to non-self-sufficient residents.
Last updated: May 2026