Where is ICELAND located on the map?
Iceland is an island country in the North Atlantic Ocean consisting of a main island representing 99.7% of its area around which gravitate a few small islands and islets, located on the ridge mid-Atlantic, of which it represents the only part emerged. At a distance of 287 km southeast of Greenland, the country is located a few kilometers south of the Arctic Circle.
Geologically, Iceland is marked by volcanism at the origin of phenomena such as geysers or islet formations like Surtsey. Its relief is relatively high in the center (Highlands of Iceland) and characterized by fjords on the coasts. More than half of the territory is devoid of vegetation.
The island, with a density of 3.2 inhabitants per square kilometer, has a very uneven distribution of population, which is concentrated in the Reykjavik region, and is almost absent from the center of the country. Its economy depends in part on its natural resources, particularly fishing, livestock and geothermal activity.
Where is the country of ICELAND situated?
Iceland is an island state at the boundary between the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic Ocean. Although culturally related to Europe, geographically, the country is part of the North American continent. Its closest neighbors are Greenland, located 287 km to the northwest, and the Faroe Islands, 420 km to the southeast. Covering an area of 103 000 km2, the country is surrounded by an exclusive economic zone of 758 000 km2. Iceland is bordered by the Irminger Sea to the southwest, the Danish Strait to the west, the Greenland Sea to the north and the Norwegian Sea to the east.
The main island is located a few kilometers south of the Arctic Circle. Grímsey Island is located on the Arctic Circle, beyond which lies the uninhabited island of Kolbeinsey which is the northernmost point of Iceland.
As an island state, Iceland has no land border, but has two maritime borders: one with Norway (more precisely with the island of Jan Mayen), the other with Denmark (incorporated two sections, one with Greenland, the other with the Faroe Islands).
Iceland has a temperate ocean climate, influenced by cold polar winds. The temperatures never go away much from 0 ° C (5 ° C annual average in Reykjavik, 3.8 ° C in Akureyri). Rainfall varies from north to south. Akureyri, to the north, has a total less than 500 mm, while to the south some meteorological stations hit hard by ocean storms have a total annual rainfall of more than 2,000 mm.
An Icelandic proverb illustrating the variability of time says, “If you do not like the weather, just wait five minutes.”
The island is almost totally south of the Arctic Circle and is therefore alternating day / night all year long, even if daylight is very short in winter, and nights are very short in summer. Only the small island of Grímsey, which is the northernmost inhabited place in Iceland, is crossed by the Arctic Circle.
Tourism in Iceland has grown considerably in economic significance in the past 15 years. As of 2016, the tourism industry is estimated to contribute about 10 percent to the Icelandic GDP; the number of foreign visitors is set to exceed 2,000,000 by the end of 2017; tourism is responsible for a share of nearly 30 percent of the country’s export revenue.
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