Grytviken (Norwegian Grytviken, Boiler Bay) is a township in the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Grytviken is located on the east coast of the Thatcher Peninsula, off the small King Edward Bay (as Grytviken was originally called), part of East Cumberland Bay on the northeast coast of South Georgia Island. Grytviken is sometimes erroneously referred to as the capital of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, although the official government is based at King Edward Point, located nearby.

Grytviken is the port of the island, and since 1909 the residence of the British magistrate of the colony of the Dependent Territories of the Falkland Islands (since 1985 – the overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands), as well as port, customs, immigration, fishing, postal authorities and administration. The administrative complex of the government of South Georgia is located together with the research station of the British Antarctic Survey at Cape King Edward at the entrance to the bay of the same name at a distance of only 800 meters from the whaling village (usually also meant to be part of Grytviken).

The whaling base was built in 1904 by 60 Norwegians under the direction of Carl Anton Larsen shortly after arriving on the island on 16 November. On December 24 of the same year, a plant for the production of whale oil was launched. Larsen had chosen the site for the whaling base during a previous visit to the site in 1902 as captain of the Antarctic expedition of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition led by Otto Nordenskiöld.

Grytviken was the first whaling base in Antarctica. First owned by the Argentine Fishing Company, founded by Larsen, and from January 1, 1906, operated with a whaling license issued by the Governor of the Falkland Islands, which the company obtained through the British Embassy in Buenos Aires. In 1960, Grytviken was sold to the Albion Star company (South Georgia), and in 1963-64 the base was rented by the Japanese whaling company Kokusai Gyogyo kabushigaisha. The activity was finally terminated on December 4, 1964. Like the rest of the whaling stations on the island, since 1979 it has been owned by the British company Christian Salvesen.
Norwegian Church, Grytviken

Regular meteorological observations in Grytviken were started by Larsen in 1905. Since 1907 carried out by the Argentine Fisheries Company in cooperation with the Argentine Meteorological Bureau, in accordance with the requirements of the British whaling license, until the conditions of the latter were changed in 1949.
Grytviken, 1914

During the Falklands conflict, Grytviken and Leith Harbor were occupied by Argentine forces on 3 April 1982 in a two-hour battle that damaged the Argentine frigate Guerrico and shot down an Argentine helicopter. After 22 days of occupation, the Argentine garrison capitulated without resistance on April 25, 1982, when the Argentine submarine Santa Fe was damaged and captured by the British fleet near the island.

After the conflict, the UK maintained a small Marine garrison at King Edward Point until March 2001, when the British Antarctic Survey resumed control of its base at Grytviken.
In recent years, the abandoned whaling station, after a decade of devastation aggravated by the harsh climate of the island, has been cleared of debris and pollution (oil and chemical products and asbestos). A number of buildings have been restored by the Government of South Georgia for tourism and other purposes. Among them is the famous Norwegian Church (English) Russian, built in 1913, as well as the manager’s villa given over to the South Georgia Museum. The port pier has also been repaired, and the whaling ships Albatros and Diaz, which until recently lay on the bottom near the pier, were raised. There is a project to restart hydropower production at the nearby Gool Lake artificial reservoir.

Grytviken is one of the most popular tourist sites in Antarctica, both because of the impressive scenery of the surrounding mountains, glaciers and fjords, as well as the historical sights of the whaling base, in the cemetery of which the famous polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton was buried in 1922. Solveig Gunbjorg Jacobsen, the first person born in Antarctica, was born in Grytviken.