Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Norse established their parliament on the Tinganes peninsula in AD 850, making Tórshavn the capital of the Faroe Islands. It has remained the capital ever since, giving it more than eleven centuries of continuous political life.
As of 2024, the city of Tórshavn has a population of 14,223. The greater urban area, including the suburbs of Hoyvík and Argir, has a population of 22,444.
A plague of smallpox struck Tórshavn in 1709, killing 250 of the roughly 300 inhabitants. The epidemic nearly wiped out the entire population of the town.
Tinganes is the historic peninsula that divides the harbour of Tórshavn into two bays, Eystaravág and Vestaravág. It was the site of the Viking-age parliament from at least the 9th century and today still contains small wooden houses with turf roofs, the oldest of which dates back roughly 500 years.
Niels Ryberg Finsen, born in Tórshavn in 1860, is among the city's most celebrated natives. He won the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1903, and the city's only pedestrianised street is named after him.
Free trade came to the Faroe Islands in 1856, ending a trade monopoly that had been established by the Norwegian Crown in 1271. The abolition of the monopoly opened the islands to the wider world and transformed the economy, with Tórshavn at its centre.