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Founded as a fishing village in 1070, Bergen, with its perfectly sheltered harbor and access to the Atlantic, soon developed into a trading center. By the 13th century it was the most important city in Norway and the royal capital, where five kings were crowned. Then Oslo took precedence, but around 1350, Hansa merchants from north German and other ports established themselves in Bergen and dominated its commerce for several hundred years. Later,
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under Danish rule, it suffered from discrimination in favor of Copenhagen, but in the 19th and 20th centuries came into its own again.
Until the railway reached Bergen in 1909, it was quicker and easier to get to London than to Oslo. Bergen is now the dominating city for trade and business in the western part of Norway. In the 1970's, oil business started characterizing the business life, while the crisis in shipping has both reduced the traditional shipping industry and the building of new ships.
For more than a century, the coastal steamer Hurtigruten has been the lifeline linking the tiny fishing communities scattered along the northern coast. A ship heads north from Bergen every night, calling at 33 ports on the six-day journey to Kirkenes, in northern Norway. Bergen is also the main jumping-off point for journeys into the western fjords.
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In the late Middle Ages the Hanseatic League established the German Kontor in Bryggen (the waterfront), which became a thriving center of international trade. The characteristic parallel rows of buildings, with their seaward-facing gables represent a building tradition dating back almost 900 years. The old wooden buildings along the harbor front in Bergen were placed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1980.
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