Nice map titled Jan Mayen, from wood engraving with fine detail and clear impression. Overall size approx.  17 x 17 cm, image size approx. 12 x 8.5 cm. From La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes, 19 vol. (1875-94), great work of Elisee Reclus. Cartographer is Charles Perron.

Jan Mayen

island, part of the Kingdom of Norway, in the Greenland Sea of  the Arctic Ocean, about 300 mi (500 km) east of Greenland. It is approximately  35 mi long and 9 mi across at its widest point, with an area of 144 sq mi (373  sq km). It is the peak of a submarine volcanic ridge, and Beerenberg volcano  (7,470 ft [2,277 m]), the last major eruption of which was in 1732, forms the  Nord-Jan, the northeastern region of the island. The remainder, Sør-Jan, the  southern region, is low and hilly. There are no harbours. The island is bleak  and desolate, and its climate is foggy and stormy, with temperatures ranging  from -25° F (-32° C) in December to 50° F (10° C) in July. There is a little  tundra, on which a few foxes subsist.

The island was possibly first sighted in 1607 by Henry Hudson, who called it  Hudson's Tutches (Touches). In 1614 a Dutch sea captain, Jan May, claimed  territorial rights to the island for his company and Holland. It was early used  as a whaling base, but by 1642 the whales had been exterminated from the  surrounding waters. It was frequently visited, but the first to winter on the  island were the personnel of an Austrian weather station established there  during the First International Polar Year (1882–83). A Norwegian meteorological  observatory and a radio station were built in 1921, and on May 8, 1929, Norway  annexed Jan Mayen. During World War II the U.S. armed forces maintained a  weather station there. In 1958–59 an airstrip and a radio and navigation station  were erected on the island by the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)  allies. This equipment was extended with a console navigation system in 1970.  Apart from the station personnel, the island is uninhabited.