Murmansk (Му́рманск) is a city in the extreme northwest of Russia (north of the Arctic circle) with a seaport on the Kola Gulf, 20 miles from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland. It has 308 100 inhabitants (2004) and is an important navy base. The port remains ice-free year round due to the warm North Atlantic drift ocean current. Murmansk is the largest city in the world located at such a high northerly latitude.
Murmansk is the administrative centre of Murmansk Oblast.
History
The city, known initially as Romanov-on-Murman , was founded in 1915 when the railroad line to Kola was built, and named after the Russian royal dynasty of the Romanovs. The city was renamed Murmansk after the October Revolution in 1917.
From 1918 to 1920, the city was occupied by the Western powers who had been allied in the First World War and "White" forces during the Civil War in Russia.
During World War II, Murmansk was a vital link with the Western world for Russia, and a vast commerce with the Allies, especially the US, in items important to the respective military efforts passed through it: primarily manufactured goods into the Soviet Union, and raw materials out. German forces launched an offensive against the city in 1941, but in the face of fierce Soviet resistance, neither capture of the city nor cutting off the vital Karelian railway line resulted. This resistance was eventually recognized by the Soviet Union with the formal designation of Murmansk as a Hero City.
During the cold war it was a centre of Soviet submarine activity, and since the breakup of the USSR, it remains the headquarters of the Russian Northern Fleet as well as its Nuclear powered icebreaker fleet.