Kongsfjorden is an inlet

Inlet

An inlet is a narrow body of water between islands or leading inland from a larger body of water, often leading to an enclosed body of water, such as a sound, bay, lagoon or marsh. In sea coasts an inlet usually refers to the actual connection between a bay and the ocean and is often called an...

 on the west coast of Spitsbergen

Spitsbergen

Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...

, an island which is part of the Svalbard

Svalbard

Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic, constituting the northernmost part of Norway. It is located north of mainland Europe, midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The group of islands range from 74° to 81° north latitude , and from 10° to 35° east longitude. Spitsbergen is the...

 archipelago

Archipelago

An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...

 in the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

. The inlet is 26 km (16.2 mi) long and ranges in width from 6 to 14 km (4 to 9 miles). Two glaciers, Kronebreen

Kronebreen

Kronebreen is a glacier located at the western side of Spitsbergen, Svalbard. It is one of the largest glacier streams on Svalbard, draining about 690 square kilometers. The glacier moves with an average speed of two meters per day....

 and Kongsvegen

Kongsvegen glacier

The Kongsvegen is a glacier, located in west Spitsbergen, Svalbard, north of the Norwegian mainland.-Description:The glacier is of an outlet type with a sea calving terminus. It occupies of Spitsbergen, which is covered in glaciers for 80% of its land mass...

, head the fjord.

The coal-mining town of Ny-Ålesund

Ny-Ålesund

Ny-Ålesund is one of the four permanent settlements on the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago. It is located on the Brøgger peninsula at Kongsfjorden...

 is located on its southern shore and is one of only 4 permanent settlements on Spitsbergen. It is also a popular shore break for cruises although it is worried that tourism

Tourism

Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

 may cause interference with the sensitive scientific devices in the settlement.

Kongsfjorden was originally named Deer Sound by Jonas Poole

Jonas Poole

Jonas Poole was an early 17th century English explorer, sealer, and whaler. Although Henry Hudson has often been dubbed the "father of English whaling," Poole, who's 1610 voyage led to the establishment of the English whaling trade, deserves the title.-Voyages to Bear Island, 1604-1609:He served...

 (1610), and was known as such by the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 whalers until at least 1658. Giles and Rep (c. 1710) were the first to name it Koninks Bay. William Scoresby

William Scoresby

William Scoresby , was an English Arctic explorer, scientist and clergyman.-Early years:Scoresby was born in the village of Cropton near Pickering 26 miles south of Whitby in Yorkshire. His father, William Scoresby , made a fortune in the Arctic whale fishery...

(1820) repeats this error by naming it Kings Bay, while he moves Deer Sound to a bay in the northeast of the fjord. Modern cartographers have simply repeated this error.