Northern exposure

Situated at the northwestern region of Spitsbergen, the largest island in Norway's Arctic Svalbard archipelago, Ny-Alesund is the world's northernmost permanent settlement of its kind.

Once a thriving coal mining town, Ny-Alesund now buzzes with the activities of polar researchers. Since the Yellow River Station's inception in 2004, China has established a significant presence in this scientific sanctuary, carrying out a range of observations and investigations in glaciology, terrestrial ecology, marine ecology, space physics and other fields.