• Iceland is located halfway between Europe and Greenland on a fault line between tectonic plates. As a result, the country has been growing at a rate of 2cm each year.
  • Iceland has more than 200 volcanoes, many of them still active.
  • Geothermal activity from hot steam vents and volcanoes powers most houses in Iceland.
  • The ice on the main glaciers of Iceland is over half a mile thick.
  • Iceland has no army, navy or air force, but it does have a Coast Guard.
  • Most people in Iceland do not have a family surname. Instead, they take their father’s first name as their last name, with ‘–sdottir’ added for a girl and ‘–sson’ for a boy.
  • An Icelandic speciality is hakarl, which is (very smelly) rotten shark meat.
  • Iceland is home to the only dormant magma chamber in the world that you can venture inside.
  • Many people in Iceland believe in elves. New roads and villages have to avoid places elves are thought to live.
  • Until the year 1413 dried fish was used as money in Iceland.
  • The 2020 film Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga was set in Husavik in northern Iceland.
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