Amazing Photos of Iceland

Offi­cial­ly known as the Repub­lic of Ice­land, this coun­try is locat­ed in north­west­ern Europe. Ice­land is the 18th largest island in the world and the sec­ond largest island in Europe after Great Britain. The coun­try is famous for its unique scenery, with a rugged and col­or­ful land­scape, black lava, red sul­fur, hot blue gey­sers, rivers, water­falls, bays, fjords and green val­leys.

Until the 20th cen­tu­ry, Ice­landers relied main­ly on fish­ing and agri­cul­ture, and the coun­try was one of the least devel­oped in the region. But already by the 1990s, Ice­land had devel­oped into one of the rich­est and most devel­oped coun­tries in the world. In 1994, Ice­land became part of the com­mon Euro­pean eco­nom­ic space, which meant the diver­si­fi­ca­tion of the econ­o­my, as well as com­mon eco­nom­ic and finan­cial oper­a­tions. In this com­pi­la­tion, 10 amaz­ing pho­tos of Ice­land are wait­ing for you — rugged, sur­re­al land­scapes of the coun­try that will take your breath away and impress you to the core.

Peo­ple enjoy the ther­mal spring in the Blue Lagoon of Ice­land:

Moun­tain Pond Hvalnes:

Vol­canic lake in Ice­land

The coun­try presents end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties for win­ter sports — it is a par­adise for skiers and snow­board­ers:

Eyjaf­jal­la­jökull is one of the small­est glac­i­ers in Ice­land:

Tra­di­tion­al hous­es with grass on peat roofs. Until the 20th cen­tu­ry, most Ice­landers lived in rur­al areas, and built dwellings such as:

Sun­set in Ice­land. There are a lot of pho­tos to take here:

Numer­ous lakes and glac­i­ers await you here:

The famous bay of Hunafloy:

Ice­land is also famous for its amaz­ing water­falls, one of which is pic­tured below:

The coun­try includes the island of Ice­land itself, as well as remote small islands in the North Atlantic Ocean between Green­land, Nor­way, Scot­land, Ire­land and the Faroe Islands. Ice­land has a pop­u­la­tion of 321,857, mak­ing it the most sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed coun­try in Europe. The island nation attracts hun­dreds of thou­sands of tourists because of its beau­ti­ful scenery. Lakes and glac­i­ers cov­er approx­i­mate­ly 14% of the island’s sur­face, with many gey­sers and warm springs. The shift­ing rugged land­scapes add mys­ti­cal vari­abil­i­ty to the oth­er­world­ly atmos­phere.

Despite the stun­ning pho­tos of Ice­land above, the coun­try is vul­ner­a­ble to envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, with defor­esta­tion and expand­ing pas­tures tak­ing their toll on nature, and numer­ous tourists leav­ing their mark as well. The erup­tion of the Laki vol­cano in 1783–1784 caused a famine that killed near­ly a quar­ter of the island’s pop­u­la­tion. In addi­tion, erup­tions often car­ry clouds of dust through­out Europe, as far as parts of Asia and Africa, also affect­ing the cli­mate. In efforts to reunite man with nature, the Ice­landers have made good use of geot­her­mal ener­gy, which allows them to heat their homes, gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty and water.