Iceland Intereting Facts- Feb 18 We fly tonight!

Iceland Feb 18 - 26 2013

Interesting Facts: 

In 1980, Icelanders elected Vigdis Finnbogadottir as the world’s first female head of state.

Iceland has no army, navy, or air force. It does have a Coast Guard.

Iceland’s first inhabitants were Irish monks, who regarded the island as a sort of hermitage until the early 9th century.

An international study done in 2006 ranked Iceland as the “Fourth Happiest Nation” in the world.

There are only about 319,000 Icelanders in the country. About half of them live in the capital Reykjavik and its suburbs. The average age is 35.6

Iceland is about the size of Kentucky.

Life expectancy is 81.3 years for women and 76.4 for men.  Men have the highest in the world and women the third highest.

Many Icelanders believe in elves.  Certain roads have been re-routed to avoid disturbing areas where elves are thought to live.

More than 90% of Icelanders follow Lutheranism. The national religion.

Iceland’s main industry is fishing.

The weather in Iceland is not as cold as you might think. (Winter is a heck of a lot colder in Minnesota than it is in Iceland!) The climate is relatively mild because of the influence of the Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf Stream. Average winter daytime temperature in Reykjavik is 31 degrees F.

53.9% of all energy needs in Iceland are met by geothermal energy production (hot springs), while 17.8% of all energy needs are met by hydro-electric production, which comes from the big waterfalls.

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Why those loooong Icelandic names:

Icelandic women don’t take their husband’s name when they marry, chiefly because the husband doesn’t have a family name to take.


Because they don’t have surnames, it is not appropriate to call an Icelander by Mr. or Ms. Almost all Icelanders use the first name with everyone—including the president of Iceland.

Only in Iceland has the centuries-old Scandinavian pattern of naming continued down to the present. A person’s given name is his or her primary name. The telephone directory lists individuals by their Christian name such as Jon.

Icelanders have also retained the old system of patronymics. Thus by adding son or dottir to the possessive of a person’s father’s name, the son of Sigurd becomes Jon Sigurdsson and his son Sveinn becomes Sveinn Jonsson and his daughter Helga, Helga Jonsdottir. And so on. Women also don’t change their names when they marry.

In Iceland, only names which appear on the Personal Names Register are allowed to be used

We are especially looking forward to spending part of our trip with an Icelandic family!