The cape includes a 307-metre-high cliff (1,007 ft) with a large flat plateau on top, where visitors, weather permitting, can watch the midnight sun and views of the Barents Sea to the north.

The North Cape was named by the Englishman Steven Borough, captain of the Edward Bonaventure, which sailed past in 1553 in search of the Northeast Passage.

[1] The North Cape became a popular tourist destination during the last decades of the nineteenth century, especially after King Oscar II's visit in 1873.

[5] Regular coastal steamer routes from Germany to Northern Norway established in this period facilitated these visits, and Thomas Cook & Son began arranging tours to the destination as early as 1875.

[5] In 1891–92, an octagonal wooden building was erected on top of the cape, later named "Stoppenbrinck's" (or "Stoppenbrink's") "Champagne Pavilion".

In 2000, and again in 2011, the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment responded to pressure from interest groups and asked Nordkapps VEL, the company that maintains the site, to reduce the admission fee to the plateau.

[10] Nordkapps VEL responded that the 8,000 daily visitors and distant location places great demands on the operations, maintenance, and security of the facilities and natural features of the large site.

The bicycle race started in Hammerfest, finishing on North Cape and was won by Norwegian, Lars Petter Nordhaug for Visma–Lease a Bike in a time of 4 hours 51 minutes 3 seconds.

[14] Norge På Langs is a 2,533 kilometres (1,574 mi) classic ski route, which stretches from Lindesnes, the most southerly tip of Norway to Nordkapp in the far north.

The record of cycling this distance is 4 days, 22 hours, and 18 minutes which was performed by a group of five men from Rye in Oslo, in July 2003.