Iceland
Name
| Official name | Iceland — Ísland; the Republic of Iceland, Lýðveldið Ísland |
|---|---|
| Former names | The Icelandic Commonwealth (930–1262); a dependency of Norway (1262–1380) and Denmark (1380–1918); the Kingdom of Iceland in union with Denmark (1918–1944) |
| Demonym | Icelandic; Icelander |
| Meaning of the name | "Ice land" — Flóki's name for the fjord of drift ice he saw in the 860s |
| Motto | None official |
Quick facts
| Capital | Reykjavík — settled 874, a town from 1786, the capital since 1845; about 140,000 in the city, 250,000 in the capital region; the northernmost capital of a sovereign state |
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| Largest towns | Reykjavík with Kópavogur, Hafnarfjörður and Garðabær; Akureyri, about 20,000; Reykjanesbær with Keflavík; Selfoss; Akranes |
| Official language | Icelandic — the Old Norse of the sagas little changed, so that schoolchildren read the 13th-century texts; Icelandic Sign Language recognized; English by nearly all; Polish the largest foreign tongue |
| Currency | Icelandic króna — ISO code ISK, kr; about 125 to the U.S. dollar; the smallest independent currency in the world |
| Time zone | Greenwich Mean Time, UTC±0, all year — no summer time |
| Calling code | +354 |
| Internet domain | .is |
| ISO 3166 codes | IS · ISL · 352 |
| Vehicle registration code | IS |
| Driving side | Right — since H-dagurinn, 26 May 1968 |
| Electricity | 230 V, 50 Hz; plug types C and F |
| Independence | Sovereignty 1 December 1918, in union with Denmark; the republic 17 June 1944 — the national day, Jón Sigurðsson's birthday |
| National days | 17 June, National Day; 1 December, Sovereignty Day; the first day of summer, a Thursday in April; 1 May; the June 17 parades and the Þorrablót feasts of midwinter |
| Constitution | 17 June 1944 — the Constitution of the Republic of Iceland, adopted by the referendum of May 1944 with 97% for the republic; amended in 1959, 1968, 1984, 1991, 1995, 1999 and 2013; the crowd-sourced draft of 2011 never enacted |
| Population | About 390,000 (Statistics Iceland, 2025) — the census of 2021 counted 368,792; about a fifth born abroad |
| Area | 103,000 km² (39,769 sq mi) — land 100,250 km², water 2,750 km²; about 11% under glaciers |
Flag & national symbols
| National flag | A blue field with a red Nordic cross edged in white — the blue of the mountains and the sea, the white of the ice, the red of the fire of the volcanoes; flown from 19 June 1915 and made the flag of the sovereign state on 1 December 1918, of the republic by the law of 17 June 1944.Flag of Iceland |
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| Coat of arms | The flag on a shield borne by the four guardian spirits of the sagas — the bull of the west, the eagle of the north, the dragon of the east and the rock giant of the south — who drove off a Danish king's wizard, on a slab of columnar basalt; adopted 17 June 1944 |
| National anthem | "Lofsöngur" — "Ó, guð vors lands," O God of our land — words by Matthías Jochumsson, music by Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson, for the millennium of the settlement in 1874; the anthem by law since 1983 |
| National colors | Blue, white and red |
| National bird | The gyrfalcon — fálki, the largest of the falcons, on the arms of the kingdom of 1903–19; the puffin the bird of the tourists, the ptarmigan of the Christmas table |
| National flower | The mountain avens — holtasóley, Dryas octopetala; chosen by public vote in 2004 |
| National animal | The Icelandic horse — the small, five-gaited breed of the settlers, unmixed for a thousand years, never allowed back once it leaves; the Arctic fox the only native mammal |
| National dish | Skyr, the cultured milk; hangikjöt, the smoked lamb of Christmas; plokkfiskur; the hákarl of Þorrablót, fermented shark; the hot dog of Bæjarins Beztu; widely cited |
| Symbol status | The flag and arms are fixed by the law of 1944; the anthem by the law of 1983; the flower by the vote of 2004; the bird, animal and dishes widely cited |
Geography
| Location | The North Atlantic, just south of the Arctic Circle, which touches the island of Grímsey — 970 km from Norway, 800 km from Scotland, 290 km from Greenland; the Mid-Atlantic Ridge running through it |
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| Land borders | None |
| Coastline | 4,970 km (3,088 mi) — the fjords of the west, the north and the east; the sandy south |
| Highest point | Hvannadalshnúkur, 2,110 m (6,922 ft), on Öræfajökull |
| Lowest point | The Atlantic Ocean, 0 m |
| Mean elevation | 557 m (1,827 ft) |
| Glaciers | About 11% of the land — Vatnajökull, 8,100 km², the largest in Europe by volume, up to 950 m thick, over the volcanoes of Grímsvötn and Bárðarbunga; Langjökull; Hofsjökull; Mýrdalsjökull over Katla; Eyjafjallajökull; all retreating, Okjökull the first declared dead, 2014 |
| Volcanoes | About 30 active systems — Hekla, the "gateway to hell" of the medieval maps, 18 eruptions since 1104; Katla, overdue; Grímsvötn, the most frequent; Laki, whose eruption of 1783 killed a fifth of the people and cooled the world; Eyjafjallajökull, whose ash of April 2010 closed Europe's skies for a week; Surtsey, born of the sea in 1963; Heimaey, 1973; the Reykjanes peninsula, awake since 19 March 2021 after 800 years — Fagradalsfjall, then the Sundhnúkur fissures since 18 December 2023, a dozen eruptions by 2026, the town of Grindavík evacuated on 10 November 2023 and largely abandoned, the Blue Lagoon walled |
| Rivers and lakes | The Þjórsá, 230 km, the longest; the Jökulsá á Fjöllum with Dettifoss, the most powerful waterfall in Europe; the Hvítá with Gullfoss; the Ölfusá, the largest by flow; Þingvallavatn, 84 km², the largest natural lake; Þórisvatn, the reservoir, larger; Mývatn of the birds |
| Terrain | A plateau of lava and moor at 400 to 800 m — the Highlands, uninhabited — with the glaciers on it; the fjords cut into the coast; the lowlands of the south and the west; the geysers of Haukadalur, whose Geysir named all others, and Strokkur beside it |
| Climate | Subarctic maritime — the Gulf Stream keeping the coast mild, Reykjavík's January about 0°C and July about 11°C; the wind the constant; the midnight sun of June and four hours of daylight in December; the northern lights |
| Natural hazards | Eruptions; the jökulhlaup floods when a volcano melts its glacier; earthquakes — 2000, 2008, the swarms of Reykjanes; avalanches — Súðavík and Flateyri, 1995, 34 dead; storms; the sea |
| Natural resources | Fish; the hydropower of the glacial rivers and the geothermal heat — near-limitless energy that runs the aluminum smelters; diatomite; the scenery |
| Land use | Agricultural land about 19%, nearly all pasture; forest about 0.5% — the settlers cut the birch woods, and the planting has begun |
| National parks | 3 — Þingvellir, 1930, the site of the Althing on the rift; Vatnajökull, 2008, the largest in Europe, 14,000 km², with Skaftafell and Jökulsárgljúfur; Snæfellsjökull, 2001, the glacier of Jules Verne's journey to the center of the earth |
| UNESCO World Heritage | 3 — Þingvellir National Park (2004); Surtsey (2008), the new island; Vatnajökull National Park (2019) |
| Administrative divisions | 8 regions — the Capital Region, Southern Peninsula, West, Westfjords, Northwest, Northeast, East and South — of 62 municipalities since the mergers of 2022; 6 constituencies |
People
| Population | About 390,000 (2025) — 368,792 at the census of 2021 |
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| Population density | About 4 per km² (10 per sq mi) — the lowest in Europe; the Highlands empty |
| Population growth | About 1.5% a year — by immigration; the fastest in western Europe in the 2020s |
| Median age | About 38 years |
| Life expectancy | About 83 years — among the highest in the world |
| Fertility rate | About 1.6 births per woman |
| Urban population | About 94% — two-thirds in the capital region |
| Adult literacy | About 100% |
| Origin | Icelanders of Norse and Celtic descent — the DNA of the settlers half Norwegian men and half Gaelic women; about 20% born abroad — Poles the largest group, some 25,000, with Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Romanians and Filipinos; the patronymics: Kristrún Frostadóttir is the daughter of Frosti, and the phone book runs by first name |
| Languages | Icelandic by about 90% — the language kept pure by the naming committee and the coining of native words; Polish; English the second language of all; Danish taught |
| Religion | The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland, the state church, about 58%, falling; Catholic about 4%, the Poles; the Ásatrú of the old gods, a few thousand and a temple; no religion about 8% registered, more in the polls |
| Human Development Index | 0.972 (2023 data, 2025 report) — very high; 3rd of 193 |
| Peace and equality | First in the Global Peace Index every year since 2008; first in the Global Gender Gap Index since 2009; no army; the first country to elect a woman head of state, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, in 1980 |
| Sport | Football — the smallest nation ever at a European Championship, in 2016, and at a World Cup, in 2018, with the thunder clap; handball, the Olympic silver of 2008; the strongmen — Jón Páll Sigmarsson, Hafþór Björnsson; the CrossFit champions; the glima wrestling of the sagas |
| Literature | The sagas of the 13th century and the Eddas — Snorri Sturluson; Halldór Laxness, the Nobel Prize of 1955; the most books published and read per head in the world; the Christmas book flood, Jólabókaflóð |
Government
| Form of government | Unitary parliamentary republic under the Constitution of 1944 — the president a head of state directly elected for four years, with a veto that sends laws to referendum; the prime minister head of government; the Althing of 63 |
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| President | Halla Tómasdóttir (independent), since 1 August 2024 — the seventh; a businesswoman, the chief executive of the B Team, born 11 October 1968 in Reykjavík; elected 1 June 2024 with 34.1% in a field of twelve; the second woman in the office |
| Prime Minister | Kristrún Frostadóttir (Social Democratic Alliance), since 21 December 2024 — the youngest in the country's history at 36, and among the youngest heads of government in the world; an economist, born 12 May 1988 in Reykjavík; leader of the Alliance since 28 October 2022 |
| The government | The coalition of the Social Democratic Alliance, the Liberal Reform Party — Viðreisn — and the People's Party, 36 of 63 seats; Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir of Viðreisn foreign minister; formed after the snap election of 30 November 2024, in which the Alliance won 15 seats, Viðreisn 11 and the People's Party 10, and the Left-Greens of the fallen coalition lost every seat |
| Parliament | The Althing — Alþingi — founded at Þingvellir in 930, the oldest parliament in the world, sitting in Reykjavík since 1845; 63 members elected for four years by proportional representation in six constituencies; a single chamber since 1991 |
| The next election | Due by November 2028; the presidential election in 2028 |
| The EU referendum | Held 29 August 2026 on reopening the accession talks the country applied for in July 2009 after the crash and paused in 2013 — the date set 6 March 2026 and approved by the Althing on 28 May; the vote No, the fishing grounds the reason given by most, though the polls had long shown a narrow Yes; "people are happy with the EEA agreement," the prime minister said, and the government would build on it; the panel on the króna and the euro the other half of the coalition's promise |
| Europe | The European Economic Area since 1 January 1994 — the single market without membership, with Norway and Liechtenstein; EFTA since 1970; Schengen since 25 March 2001; the Council of Europe |
| Legal system | Civil law on the Scandinavian model, from the Grágás of the Commonwealth; the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals of 2018; the Special Prosecutor of 2009 who jailed the bankers of the crash, some 26 of them |
| Defense | No armed forces — the only NATO member without them; the Coast Guard that won the Cod Wars; the Keflavík base of the United States from 1951 to 2006, and the American aircraft back since 2016; the Arctic and the Greenland question of 2025–26 |
| Regions | 8 regions of 62 municipalities with elected councils; no regional government |
| NATO | A founding member, 4 April 1949 — the vote that brought the riot of 30 March 1949 to the Althing square |
| United Nations | Member since 19 November 1946 |
| Other memberships | The Nordic Council (1952), the OECD (1961), the Arctic Council, the WTO; the Reykjavík summit of Reagan and Gorbachev at Höfði, 11–12 October 1986 |
Economy
| GDP (nominal) | About US$34 billion (2025, IMF) |
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| GDP per capita | About US$85,000 (2025) — among the ten highest in the world |
| GDP per capita (PPP) | About US$80,000 (2025) |
| GDP growth | About 2% a year (2024–25); inflation from a peak of 10% in 2023 to about 4%; interest rates the coalition's target |
| Economy by sector | Services about 70%, industry about 25%, agriculture about 5% — the fish in the counts of both |
| Currency | Icelandic króna (ISK) |
| Fish | The backbone — cod, haddock, capelin, herring and mackerel from among the richest waters on earth, about a million metric tons a year and a fifth of exports; the quota system of 1984; the Cod Wars of 1958–76 that won the 200-mile zone; the reason for the referendum's No |
| Aluminum | Three smelters — Straumsvík, Grundartangi and the Alcoa plant of Reyðarfjörður — fed by cheap hydropower and geothermal, smelting imported bauxite into about 850,000 metric tons a year, the largest export by value; the silicon plants beside them |
| Tourism | About 2.2 million visitors a year, five for every Icelander — the Golden Circle, the Blue Lagoon, the Ring Road, the northern lights; about 8% of GDP; the boom since 2010's eruption put the island on the screens |
| Energy | Electricity 100% renewable — about 70% hydropower and 30% geothermal; the heating of 90% of homes by geothermal water, Reykjavík's since the 1930s; the data centers; among the highest power use per head on earth |
| The crash of 2008 | The three banks — Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir — ten times the economy, collapsed in a week in October 2008; the króna halved, the IMF program, the capital controls to 2017, the Icesave dispute with Britain and the Netherlands settled in the courts in 2013; the bankers jailed and the recovery by 2012 |
| Public finances | Public debt about 60% of GDP, falling; the pension funds among the largest in the world for the economy |
| Income classification | High income (World Bank); an OECD member since 1961 |
Transport & infrastructure
| Main airport | Keflavík International Airport, 50 km from the capital on the Reykjanes lava — about 8 million passengers, the hub between Europe and America; Reykjavík Airport in the city for the domestic flights; Akureyri; Egilsstaðir |
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| Airlines | Icelandair, founded 1937 as Flugfélag Akureyrar, the transatlantic connector via Keflavík; PLAY, the low-cost carrier of 2019, collapsed in September 2025 |
| Main ports | Reykjavík; Grundartangi for the smelters; Reyðarfjörður; the fishing ports of Vestmannaeyjar, Grindavík and the Westfjords; Seyðisfjörður for the Norröna ferry to Denmark |
| Railways | None — the only Nordic country without; the Reykjavík–Keflavík line studied and shelved |
| Roads | About 13,000 km (8,100 mi), about a third paved; the Ring Road, Route 1, 1,332 km around the island, completed in 1974 with the Skeiðará bridge; the Highland F-roads for four-wheel drive; the Hvalfjörður tunnel of 1998 and the Vaðlaheiði tunnel of 2018 |
| The ferries | Herjólfur to the Westman Islands; Baldur across Breiðafjörður; Sæfari to Grímsey on the Arctic Circle; the Norröna to the Faroes and Denmark |
History in dates
| c. 870 | The Norse settlement — Ingólfur Arnarson at Reykjavík, 874 by the tradition |
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| 930 | The Althing founded at Þingvellir |
| 1000 | Christianity adopted by the Althing |
| c. 1000 | Leif Erikson reaches Vinland |
| 13th century | The sagas written; Snorri Sturluson killed, 1241 |
| 1262–1264 | The Old Covenant — the Norwegian crown |
| 1380 | To Denmark with Norway |
| 1550 | The Reformation; Bishop Jón Arason beheaded |
| 1783–1784 | The Laki eruption — the Mist Hardships, a fifth of the people dead |
| 1874 | The first constitution; the millennium; the anthem |
| 1904 | Home rule |
| 1918 | The sovereign kingdom, 1 December |
| 1940 | The British occupation, 10 May; the Americans, 1941 |
| 1944 | The republic, 17 June |
| 1949 | NATO, 4 April |
| 1958–1976 | The three Cod Wars with Britain — the 200-mile zone won |
| 1963 | Surtsey rises from the sea, 14 November |
| 1973 | Heimaey erupts, 23 January — the town saved |
| 1980 | Vigdís Finnbogadóttir elected, 29 June — the first woman |
| 1986 | The Reykjavík summit, 11–12 October |
| 1994 | The European Economic Area, 1 January |
| 2008 | The banks collapse, 6–9 October |
| 2010 | Eyjafjallajökull, 14 April — Europe's skies closed |
| 2021 | Reykjanes awakes at Fagradalsfjall, 19 March |
| 2023 | Grindavík evacuated, 10 November |
| 2024 | Halla Tómasdóttir president, 1 August; Kristrún Frostadóttir prime minister, 21 December |
| 2026 | The EU referendum, 29 August — No |
Records & firsts
| The oldest parliament in the world | The Althing, 930 |
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| The first woman elected head of state | Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, 1980 |
| The most peaceful country | First in the Global Peace Index since 2008 |
| The most equal | First in the gender gap index since 2009 |
| The only NATO member without an army | And a coast guard that won three Cod Wars |
| Electricity 100% renewable | Hydropower and the earth's heat |
| The largest glacier in Europe by volume | Vatnajökull |
| The most powerful waterfall in Europe | Dettifoss |
| The word for all geysers | Geysir, in Haukadalur |
| The most books per head | And a Nobel laureate for 390,000 people |
| The smallest nation at a World Cup | 2018 |
| The youngest prime minister | Kristrún Frostadóttir, at 36 |
| The northernmost capital | Reykjavík, 64°N |
| A language that reads its 13th-century sagas | Icelandic |
Frequently asked questions
What is the official name of Iceland?
Iceland — Ísland — the plain name in the constitution of 1944, when the country ended its union with the Danish crown and became a republic on 17 June 1944, the birthday of the independence leader Jón Sigurðsson; it had been a sovereign kingdom in personal union with Denmark since 1 December 1918. The name was given by the Norse settler Flóki Vilgerðarson, who saw a fjord full of ice from a mountain in the 860s, and the settlers of 874 kept it; the Republic of Iceland, Lýðveldið Ísland, is the long form.
What is the capital of Iceland?
Reykjavík — "smoky bay," for the steam of its hot springs — the farm where Ingólfur Arnarson settled in 874, a town from 1786 and the capital since the Althing moved there in 1845; about 140,000 people in the city and 250,000 in the capital region, nearly two-thirds of the country, the northernmost capital of a sovereign state at 64°N. Akureyri in the north, with about 20,000, is the second town; Keflavík by the airport, Selfoss and Akranes follow.
How big is Iceland, and how many people live there?
About 103,000 km² (39,769 sq mi) — a little larger than Kentucky, about the size of Cuba — the second-largest island of Europe after Great Britain, alone in the North Atlantic just below the Arctic Circle, a tenth of it under ice and most of the rest lava, tundra and moor, with the people on the coast. Statistics Iceland counts about 390,000, the smallest population of any NATO or Nordic state and the least dense in Europe, a fifth of it born abroad, most of them Poles.
What are the highest and lowest points of Iceland?
Hvannadalshnúkur, 2,110 m (6,922 ft), on the rim of the Öræfajökull volcano at the south edge of Vatnajökull, the largest glacier in Europe by volume, 8,100 km² of ice; and the Atlantic. The island sits on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the American and Eurasian plates pull apart two centimeters a year through the middle of the country, with some thirty volcanic systems: Hekla, Katla, Grímsvötn under the ice, Eyjafjallajökull of 2010, and the Reykjanes fissures that have erupted a dozen times since 2021 beside the capital.
What currency does Iceland use?
The Icelandic króna (ISO code ISK, kr), issued by the Central Bank of Iceland since 1961 and floated since 2001, at about 125 to the U.S. dollar — the smallest independent currency in the world by the economy behind it, collapsed by half in the crash of 2008 and recovered since. Clocks keep Greenwich Mean Time, UTC±0, all year, though the island lies an hour west of Greenwich; there is no summer time.
Who governs Iceland?
Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir of the Social Democratic Alliance, an economist in office since 21 December 2024, when she became at 36 the youngest prime minister in the country's history, at the head of a coalition with the Liberal Reform Party and the People's Party formed after the snap election of 30 November 2024; and President Halla Tómasdóttir, the ceremonial head of state since 1 August 2024, a businesswoman elected in June that year. On 29 August 2026 Icelanders voted in a referendum against reopening the talks on joining the European Union that the country had paused in 2013, and the prime minister said the government would deepen the European Economic Area agreement instead. The next parliamentary election is due by November 2028.
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