Spitsbergen
The name of Spitsbergen (or Spitzbergen), the major island of the Svalbard archipelago, often popularly or historically refers to the whole Svalbard group. In such contexts the island formerly bore the name of West Spitsbergen.
Early whaling expeditions to Svalbard tended, because of currents and fauna, to cluster around West Spitsbergen and the islands off-shore.
See Smeerenburg.
