[1] The town has an ice-free harbor, including the nearby island of Melkøya which is home to a natural gas processing station.

This location was an important fishing and Arctic hunting settlement for a long time before it was given market town rights by royal decree of Christian VII of Denmark–Norway in 1789.

[10] During the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark–Norway abandoned its neutrality after a British Royal Navy fleet launched a pre-emptive attack on Copenhagen in 1807, allying with France against the Coalition.

As one of the main centres of commerce and transportation in western Finnmark, Hammerfest was subject to a British naval blockade.

Local merchants formed the militia's officer corps, while the Sami and Kven peoples served as enlisted members of the unit.

The following battle between Hammerfest's militia, who had established two artillery batteries, and Snake and Fancy, which mounted a combined number of thirty-two cannon between them, was unusually intense and ended after the Norwegians ran out of gunpowder after about 90 minutes of combat and withdrew.

Both Snake and Fancy had suffered a number of cannon hits and lost one man killed, a sailor who was buried at a local cemetery.

During the battle, the town's populace evacuated elsewhere, and the crews of Snake and Fancy remained in Hammerfest for eight days after the Norwegian withdrawal.

[citation needed] After the raid, Hammerfest became a garrison town with some regular troops and much improved and expanded fortifications.

[citation needed] Hammerfest was struck by a fire in 1890 which started in a bakery and wiped out almost half the town's houses.

After the fire Hammerfest received donations and humanitarian assistance from across the world, with the biggest single donor being Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

The Kaiser had personally visited the town several times on his yacht and had great affection for the small northern settlement.

During their long retreat following the Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation, the Germans no longer managed to transport troops by sea further east due to intensive Red Air Force raids.

On 29 August 1944 Soviet bombers launched a second airstrike, inflicting significantly more damage to buildings and infrastructure in downtown Hammerfest.

The law required that all towns should be separated from their rural districts, but because of low population, and very few voters, this was impossible to carry out for Hammerfest in 1838.