The Land of Ice and Fire

The island in the middle of the Atlantic is unique in several ways. First of all, more than the half of its population is based in Reykjavik - the most northern capital city of the world. The rest of the barely 350'000 Icelanders mostly live at the coast around the island, making it the most sparsely populated country in Europe.

 

The climate of Iceland is subarctic, since the North-Atlantic Current provides relatively warmer temperatures than in most other places of that latitude. The island is located right on the Icelandic Hotspot and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a divergent tectonic plate. Due to these facts, history and landscapes of the young land have ever been characterized by volcanic activities. The last time one heard about that might be back in 2010, when Eyjafallajökull erupted and caused an enormous disruption to air travel in Europe for about a week.

If it comes to biodiversity however, Iceland might be less interesting. Three-quarters of the land is barren of vegetation and the only native land mammal when humans arrived in the 9th century was the Arctic fox. The first settlers described the coastline as extensively forested. Nowadays, one can barely spot a tree, after they were exploited for timber and firewood. At least the wildlife improved in attractiveness. Most of the time traveling around Iceland, one will encounter bunches of sheep or horses. With some luck, one can even spot reindeer and occasionally there are polar bears coming over from Greenland. One thing is for sure, Iceland offers everybody some impressive moments. So if  volcanism or wildlife is of no interest to you, then maybe my pictures are! You are allowed to download them for free, so take your chance and take a look at them. Just click on the image below to get to the album.

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