Land
Iceland is an island of 103,000 square kilometers (39,756 square miles) and 4,970 kilometers of coastline, making it the16th largest island in the world.
Only Madagascar, Britain and Cuba are larger single independent island states.
The country’s highest peak, Hvannadalshnjúkur, rises 2,110 meters above sea level.
Roughly ten percent of the country is covered in glaciers, including Vatnajökull,the largest in Europe. Sólheimajökull, an outlet glacier of the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap, south Iceland, is presently retreating at a rate of approximately 100 meters per year.
LANGUAGE
Icelanders are of Norse and Celtic ancestry, and have lived for more than a millennium far away from other countries, which has provided geneticists with a key body of DNA. The language, Icelandic, is close to that of literature (the Sagas) in the 12th century. Most people can also speak English. Icelanders maintain a patronymic naming system, which means that someone’s first name is followed by his or her father’s name and the suffix ‘son’ or ‘dóttir’. For example, Hermann Páll Jónsson is Hermann, the son of Jón.
Iceland is an island of 103,000 square kilometers (39,756 square miles) and 4,970 kilometers of coastline, making it the16th largest island in the world.
Only Madagascar, Britain and Cuba are larger single independent island states.
The country’s highest peak, Hvannadalshnjúkur, rises 2,110 meters above sea level.
Roughly ten percent of the country is covered in glaciers, including Vatnajökull,the largest in Europe. Sólheimajökull, an outlet glacier of the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap, south Iceland, is presently retreating at a rate of approximately 100 meters per year.
LANGUAGE
Icelanders are of Norse and Celtic ancestry, and have lived for more than a millennium far away from other countries, which has provided geneticists with a key body of DNA. The language, Icelandic, is close to that of literature (the Sagas) in the 12th century. Most people can also speak English. Icelanders maintain a patronymic naming system, which means that someone’s first name is followed by his or her father’s name and the suffix ‘son’ or ‘dóttir’. For example, Hermann Páll Jónsson is Hermann, the son of Jón.
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