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Tromso sits on a small island in the Tromsøysundet strait, connected to the mainland and the island of Kvaløya by bridges, and positioned some 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. That latitude defines almost everything about the city: the polar night that swallows the sun from late November to mid-January, the midnight sun that blazes through summer, and the long autumn and winter darkness that turns the sky into a canvas for the aurora borealis. Norway's ninth-largest city by population, it has long served as the gateway for Arctic expeditions, earning the nickname the Paris of the North in the nineteenth century, partly for its relatively cosmopolitan character and partly, one suspects, for the sheer improbability of a lively, cultured town this far above the treeline.

The city centre occupies the island itself, with the cathedral, the harbour front, and the main commercial streets all within comfortable walking distance of one another. The Arctic Cathedral, technically the Tromsdalen Church, stands on the mainland side of the Tromsø Bridge and is the building most visitors photograph first, its aluminium-clad triangular facade catching whatever light the season offers. The Polaria museum and the Tromsø University Museum give the city genuine intellectual weight, the latter holding one of Norway's more significant collections of Sami cultural artefacts. The university, founded in 1968 and the world's northernmost, keeps the population young and the bar and restaurant scene on Storgata and the surrounding streets more animated than the city's size might suggest.