Iceland stands on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The North American and Eurasian plates pull apart here, and the state is the land that rises out of the sea on that seam. Reykjavík lies in the southwest, where the seam acquired a capital.
392,404 people live on 103,000 square kilometres. There is no land border. Icelandic is the official language, the Icelandic króna the currency. The interior is highland without towns. Settlement follows the coast, and Reykjavík with its surroundings is the inhabited core. The ridge is large. It is governed from Reykjavík.
Iceland at a glance
Capital
Reykjavík
Area
103,000 km²
Population
392,404
Official language(s)
Icelandic
Currency
Icelandic króna
Continent
Europe
Distinctive fact
A state on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
The ridge is the country
Þingvellir is a valley in that seam. The plates pull apart there, and in the tenth century the Althing met there, the assembly from which today's parliament takes its name. It was not, without a break, the same house. The name Althing and the place remained, and the modern Alþingi sits in Reykjavík. Geology and political origin still share this crack in the ground.
The ridge explains why the country lives as it lives. Hot water and steam belong to the ground, not to the scenery. Reykjavík's district heating comes from that water. The capital heats itself with the seam it stands on. It draws its warmth from the same ridge that is the territory.
Þingvellir is a crack in the ground and the historic place of the assembly. The state knows its seam.
— TerraTally · Countries desk
A capital in the southwest
Reykjavík and the places around it are the inhabited core. The ring road follows the edge where people live and leaves the highland in the middle out. To drive around the island is to drive around the settlement. The interior is not a second region with towns of its own. It is the part of the ridge that the state owns and does not inhabit. The 103,000 square kilometres and the 392,404 inhabitants describe that distribution: coast and capital on one side, empty highland on the other.
Fish and the sea fed this coastal country long before district heating tied the capital to the ground. The harbour belongs to the city as the hot water does. A state on a ridge in the North Atlantic lives from the sea around it and from the heat under it. Reykjavík is the place where both enter an administration.
Republic, coast guard, króna
In 1944 the republic was proclaimed at Þingvellir, while Denmark was occupied, and the union with the Danish crown ended. The same place that had seen the old assembly saw the new state. Iceland keeps no standing army. The coast guard takes the tasks at sea. The country is a member of NATO. A ridge in a strategic position gave itself a capital and no army.
Icelandic is the official language and it also orders names. The usual form is a name built from a parent's given name, and directories run by given name. The Icelandic króna of the central bank is the money of this state. Language, name and currency stay on the island, which has no land border at which they could mix with a neighbour. The ridge has neighbours only by sea.
Iceland is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, as far as it became a state here. Reykjavík governs it, heats with its water, and in 1944 received the republic at the old assembly place. An army does not belong to that form. The coast guard and the króna are enough for the country that has no border on land.