Facts about Iceland
Iceland is located in the North-Atlantic Ocean, close to the Arctic Circle. With 307,000 inhabitants on an area of 103,000 km2, Iceland is the second largest island state in Europe after Great Britain. Simultaneously it also has the smallest population density in Europe. The cause for that is among other things that Iceland is able to do justice to its name: In the ice ages nearly the whole country was covered up with ice sheet. Today still 11 % (11,800 km2) of Iceland is covered with glaciers. The biggest glacier in Europe, Vatnajökull, is situated in the south-west of the island. It covers about 8,300 km2 and reaches a thickness of about 1 km. Nearly 54 % of Iceland is wasteland, above all the Icelandic Uplands in the centre of the country. The remaining countryside is divided into 10 % lava area, 3 % inland waters and 20 % floor space. More than 93 % of the population live in cities; about 60 % live in the metropolitan area of the capital Reykjavìk. The exportation of fish, tourism and metal processing are the main sectors of economy. Despite the fact that the industrial development of Iceland is only modest to this day, it is a coveted site for energy intense productions, above all aluminium smelting. The reason for that is the comparatively cheap electricity current due to Iceland’s huge energy resources, both hydro and especially geothermal, which plays nowhere else a greater role for the energy supply of a country than in Iceland (BARTH 1997; NOWAK et al. 2005; Wikipedia I & II). (more…)
