Vadso is located on the northern shore of Varangerfjorden at the very northeastern tip of Norway on the Barents Sea. It is one of the ports for the Norwegian part of Lapland and almost one-half of the population are Finnish. The original settlement was on the adjacent island of Vassøya, but in the early 1700s the port was re-established on the mainland. The town prospered through trade with Russia but was almost totally destroyed by the Germans during World War II but has been rebuilt.