Grytviken
Grytviken is a hamlet on South Georgia in the South Atlantic.
Formerly a whaling station, it was the largest settlement on the island. Grytviken is located at the head of King Edward Cove within the larger Cumberland East Bay, considered the best harbour on the island. The location's name, meaning "pot bay", was coined in 1902 by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition and documented by the surveyor Johan Gunnar Andersson, after the expedition found old English try pots used to render seal oil at the site. Settlement was re-established on 16 November 1904 by Norwegian Antarctic explorer Carl Anton Larsen on the long-used site of former whaling settlements.
Worth seeing
- 01Grytviken Church
- 02South Georgia Museum
This is in the former whaling station manager's house.
- 03The whaling station was abandoned in 1966
- 04Grytviken Cemetery predates
Where to eat
You must bring all your own food, but you may not bring fresh food ashore: chocolates and toffees are okay. Don't eat the wildlife (any edible reindeer meat has already been scoffed), and don't feed it either. There's nothing here that wants to eat you.
Getting around Grytviken the local way
- Get inThere is of course no ferry service and tourists arrive on large cruisers or smaller expedition cruisers, often combined with a tour of the Antarctic Peninsula.
From Wikivoyage: South Georgia Island, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-03.
Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Dietmar Rabich (CC BY-SA 4.0), Wikimedia Commons.