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EveryFish

City, Norway

Bergen

Norway's old Hanseatic port, with a waterfront fish market and the country's main marine research institute.

Bergen, on Norway's west coast, grew rich in the Middle Ages on the trade in stockfish, dried cod from the far north, run by German merchants of the Hanseatic League from the wharf at Bryggen, now a World Heritage Site. Its fish market on the harbour has been a meeting place for centuries. Today Bergen is a centre of Norway's salmon farming industry and home of the Institute of Marine Research.

From stockfish to salmon

Stockfish from Lofoten was shipped south to Bergen and on to Europe, and the trade made the city the largest in Scandinavia for a time. In the 20th century Norway pioneered farming Atlantic salmon in sea cages, starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the fjords around Bergen hold many farms. Norway is now the world's largest producer of farmed salmon.

Science and the sea

The Institute of Marine Research in Bergen advises the Norwegian government on fish stocks such as cod, herring and mackerel, and on salmon farming. Its research ships survey the Norwegian and Barents Seas. Concerns over sea lice spreading from farms to wild salmon, and over escaped farmed salmon breeding with wild fish, have shaped rules that link farm growth to lice levels in each area.

Still to be written: Atlantic salmon, Atlantic cod, Atlantic herring, Atlantic mackerel, Pollachius virens.

The weekly digest

Every Monday: the fish of the day, new pages on EveryFish, and the conferences and anniversaries of the week ahead.