Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tromso

TROMSO, a town of Norway, capital of the amt of the same name and an episcopal see, stands on the eastern shore of a low fertile islet of the same name between Hvaloe and the mainland, in 69° 38′ N. lat. and 18° 55′ E. long. It consists principally of one wide street of wooden houses; the chief public buildings are the town-hall, the national church, the Roman Catholic church, and the museum, which contains a good zoological collection. The town has a high school and a normal seminary. The main specialty of the place is bears skins and other kinds of fur. The herring fishery of Tromso is very productive, and the activity of the town is further increased by the circumstance that it is the port of call for ships making for the seal fishing and walrus hunting on Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. Tromso was founded in 1794. The population, which in 1816 did not exceed 300, was 5409 in 1882.