Iceland

Introduction
Iceland is located in the continent of Europe, and covers 100,250 km2 of land and 2,750 km2 of water, making it the

108th largest nation in the world with a total area of 103,000 km2. It was founded as a distinct and original nation in 1944.

Location
Iceland lies between the longitudes of -24'530 and -13'490, and the latitudes of 63'390 and 66'570.

Climate
The climate of Iceland is Maritime Subarctic. It is influenced by the location of the country on the broad boundary between two contrasting air currents, one of Polar and the other of Tropical origin. The climate is affected also by the confluence of two ocean currents: the Gulf Stream, from near the Equator, and the East Greenland Current. The latter sometimes carries Arctic drift ice to Iceland’s Northern and Eastern shores. Seasonal shifts in temperature and precipitation are largely the result of weather fronts crossing the North Atlantic.

Iceland's relatively cold weather, particularly in the Northern part of the country, results from the movement of a front South of Iceland. The mild, rainy weather is brought by the movement of a front Northeastward between Iceland and Greenland.

Although its Northernmost points nearly touch the Arctic Circle, Iceland is much warmer than might be expected. Temperatures do not vary much throughout the country. The mean annual temperature for Reykjavík is 40 °F (4 °C). The mean January temperature is 31 °F (−0.5 °C), and the mean July temperature is 51 °F (11 °C).

Snow falls about 100 days per year in the Northwest, and about 40 in the Southeast. Annual precipitation ranges from 16 in (410 mm) on some high Northern plateaus to more than 160 in (4,100 mm) on the Southern slopes of some ice-capped mountains. In the South it averages about 80 in (2,000 mm). Gales are frequent, especially in Winter, and occasionally heavy fog may occur, but thunderstorms are rare.

Although Winters are fairly dark, Reykjavík averages nearly 1,300 hours of bright sunshine a year.Often the Aurora Borealis is visible, especially in Fall and early Winter.

Landscape
Iceland’s rugged coastline of more than 3,000 mi (4,800 km) meets the Greenland Sea on the North, the Norwegian Sea on the East, the Atlantic Ocean on the South and West, and the Denmark Strait—which separates it from Greenland by about 200 mi (320 km)—on the Northwest.

Land Use
The percent estimate for land use in Iceland in 2011 is shown below :
 * Agricultural land: 18.7%
 * Arable land: 1.2%
 * Permanent crops: 0%
 * Permanent pasture: 17.5%
 * Forest: 0.3%
 * Other: 81%

Volcanoes
Iceland contains about 200 volcanoes. A new volcano erupting on the bottom of the sea between November 1963 and June 1967 created the island of Surtsey, off the Southwestern coast.The new island grew to about 1 mi2 (2.5 km2) in area and rose more than 560 ft (170 m) above sea level, a total of 950 ft (290 m) from the ocean floor.

Volcanic activity has been particularly frequent since the 1970s. A major eruption took place in 1973, when a volcano on Heima Island (Heimaey) spilled lava into the town of Vestmannaeyjar, an important fishing center. Most of the more than 5,000 residents had to be evacuated, and—although the harbour remained intact—about one-third of the town was destroyed. Continuous eruptions took place in the Krafla area in the Northeast in 1975–84, damaging a geothermal generating project in the area.

Iceland’s best-known volcano, Hekla, erupted four times in the 20th century: in 1947, 1970, 1980, and 1991; it also had a series of small eruptions in 2000. There were eruptions in the Vatnajökull area in 1983 and 1996. The Eyjafjallajökull volcano, beneath an extension of Mýrdalsjökull (Mýrdals Glacier), erupted in March 2010 for the first time since 1821. It erupted again beginning on April 14 and sent wandering ash plumes into the skies that disrupted air traffic for days across Northern and Central Europe.

Ethnicity
The Icelandic population is mainly made up of a homogeneous mixture of descendants of the Norse and Celts, with a small percentage of the population being of foreign origin. Their percentages are 94% and 6%, respectively.

Language
Icelandic, English, Nordic languages, and German are widely spoken.

Religion
The religious percentages of Iceland, according to a 2017 estimate, are as follows :
 * Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland (official) 69.9%
 * Roman Catholic: 3.8%
 * Reykjavík Free Church: 2.9%
 * Hafnarfjrörður Free Church: 2%
 * Asatru Association: 1.1%
 * The Independent Congregation: 1%
 * Other religions (including Zuist and Pentecostal): 4%
 * None: 6.1%
 * Other or unspecified: 9.2%

Age Structure
Iceland's age structure, according to a 2017 estimate, is :
 * 0-14 years: 20.4% (male 35,418/female 33,887)
 * 15-24 years: 13.5% (male 23,190/female 22,659)
 * 25-54 years: 39.88% (male 68,579/female 66,899)
 * 55-64 years: 11.81% (male 20,119/female 20,007)
 * 65 years and over: 14.42% (male 22,936/female 26,053)

Growth Rate
Iceland has a 2017 estimated growth rate of 1.13%.

Birth Rate
Iceland has a 2017 estimated birth rate of 13.7 births/1,000 population.

Death Rate
Iceland has a 2017 estimated death rate of 6.4 deaths/1,000 population.

Arts
Art in Iceland was long connected with religion, first with the Roman Catholic church and later with the Lutheran church. The first professional secular painters appeared in Iceland in the 19th century. Gradually increasing in number, these painters—such as Jóhannes Sveinsson Kjarval, famed for his portraits of Icelandic village life—highlighted the character and beauty of their country. Painting continues to thrive in Iceland, where artists have fused foreign influences with local heritage. The work of 20th-century sculptor Ásmundur Sveinsson is also a source of pride for Icelanders. The old traditions in silver working have been retained, the most characteristic of which is the use of silver thread for ornamentation.

Visual Art
National folk traditions in applied art have achieved a new popularity. Old designs and forms have been revived, some modified to please modern tastes. Icelandic wool, knitted or woven, is the most commonly used material. It is lower in lanolin and consists of two types of fibres—one fine, soft, and insulating and the other long and water-repellent. Many people in the country participate in this industry, creating high-quality goods.

Literary Art
Icelanders are a highly literate people who prize their country’s outstanding tradition of prose and poetry. People of all ages study the ancient Icelandic sagas and, particularly in rural parts of the country, enjoy composing and performing rímur, or versified sagas. A unique contribution to Western literature, the Icelanders’ sagas of the late 12th to 13th century include the Njáls saga, a prose account of a vendetta that swept the island three centuries earlier, costing dozens of lives; it is one of the longest and arguably the finest of the island’s sagas. In the Laxdæla saga a love triangle unfolds disastrously, and the medieval tales of the Edda recount the doings of the gods and goddesses of the ancient Norse pantheon. Comprising two volumes—the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda—it is the fullest and most detailed source for modern knowledge of Germanic mythology. Iceland has often been the setting of 19th- and 20th-century European literature; the volcano Snæfellsjökull, for example, figures in Jules Verne’s popular novel Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), and the English poets W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice drew on their travels around the country for their book Letters from Iceland (1937). Several Icelandic writers have received international acclaim, such as Halldór Laxness, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955 and whose novel Sjálfstætt fólk (1934–35; Independent People) is a touchstone of modern Icelandic literature. Other native writers, such as Thor Vilhjálmsson, Einar Kárason, and Einar Már Gudmundsson, have written for the theatre and film, and their work has grown more international in theme and setting.

Music and Theatrical Art
Music enjoyed a tremendous upsurge after World War II. The programs of the Iceland Symphony are drawn from a classical repertoire and the work of modern Icelandic composers, and one or more operas or musicals are performed every year at the National Theatre and the Icelandic Opera. Popular music by Icelandic performers, such as Björk and Sigur Rós, has gained international commercial success and critical acclaim, and at the end of the 1990s Reykjavík was becoming an important recording and performing centre for popular musicians from throughout Europe. Funded by grants from the Icelandic government, a small but influential film industry also emerged in the 1990s.

Sports and Recreation
Icelanders are passionate about chess, the ancient game beloved by their Viking forebears. The country abounds in chess clubs that, over the years, have produced a series of world-class grandmasters, among them Fridrik Ólafsson, Jóhann Hjartarson, Margeir Pétursson, and Jón Árnason. Glíma, a form of wrestling that originated with the Vikings, is still practiced in Iceland. Swimming in naturally heated pools, horseback riding, and various ball games also are popular, and many Icelanders ice and rock climb, with a favorite challenge being a scramble up frozen waterfalls and glacial crevasses and an ascent of the 4,167-foot (1,270-meter) Thumall (Thumb), a peak in Skaftafell National Park. Iceland’s great rivers, such as the Thjórs, attract fishermen and kayakers from around the world. Team handball became the national sport in the 1980s, with Iceland’s national team ranked among the top teams in the world. Iceland first competed in the Olympic Games in 1908 in London, where it was represented by one athlete. It next appeared at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, but did not return to the Olympic arena until the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Its national Olympic committee, organized in 1921, had been recognized by the International Olympic Committee a year earlier. Although the country has never won a gold medal, at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, nearly all players on the gold-winning Canadian ice hockey team were of Icelandic origin.

Settlement
Iceland was founded more than 1,000 years ago during the Viking age of exploration and settled by a mixed Norse and Celtic population, making the population of Iceland extremely homogeneous. The settlers began arriving in AD 874 and continued in heavy influx for about 60 years thereafter. Historians differ on the exact origin and ethnic composition of the settlers but agree that between 60 and 80 percent of them were of Nordic stock from Norway. The rest, from Scotland and Ireland, were largely of Celtic stock. The dominant language in the period of settlement was Old Norse, the language spoken in Norway at the time. Through the centuries it has evolved into modern Icelandic, which is used throughout the country. Modern Icelanders can still read Icelandic sagas in Old Norse without difficulty. There are no ethnic distinctions. The early Nordic and Celtic stocks have long since merged, and the small number of subsequent immigrants have had no major effect on the population structure.