101-657: The Road and Coastal Administration ( Icelandic : Vegagerðin [ˈvɛːɣaˌcɛrðɪn] ) is a state run institution in Iceland whose purpose is to construct and maintain roads and infrastructure (land and sea) in rural areas and between urban areas. Formerly belonging to the Ministry of the Interior , it is now part of the Ministry of Infrastructure (until November 2021 named Ministry of Transport and Local Government ). Vegagerðin
202-512: A reflexive pronoun instead. The case of the pronoun depends on the case that the verb governs. As for further classification of verbs, Icelandic behaves much like other Germanic languages, with a main division between weak verbs and strong, and the strong verbs, of which there are about 150 to 200, are divided into six classes plus reduplicative verbs. The basic word order in Icelandic is subject–verb–object . However, as words are heavily inflected,
303-401: A West Scandinavian language. Icelandic is derived from an earlier language Old Norse , which later became Old Icelandic and currently Modern Icelandic. The division between old and modern Icelandic is said to be before and after 1540. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Around 900 CE, the language spoken in
404-511: A different field under the city council's authority. The most important board is the City Board that wields the executive rights along with the City Mayor. The City Mayor is the senior public official and also the director of city operations. Other public officials control city institutions under the mayor's authority. Thus, the administration consists of two different parts: The Independence Party
505-678: A halt in the following economic crash of 2008 . There are 14 embassies in Reykjavik, in addition to ambassadorial residences, and representative offices for Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and the European Union. Per capita car ownership in Iceland is among the highest in the world at roughly 522 vehicles per 1,000 residents, though Reykjavík is not severely affected by congestion . Several multi-lane highways (mainly dual carriageways ) run between
606-433: A historical or a formalistic view: -a , -i , and -ur , referring to the endings that these verbs take when conjugated in the first person singular present. Almost all Icelandic verbs have the ending -a in the infinitive, some with á , two with u ( munu , skulu ) one with o ( þvo : "wash") and one with e . Many transitive verbs (i.e. they require an object ), can take
707-453: A large number of companies and three investment banks. Reykjavík has been at the centre of Iceland's economic growth and subsequent economic contraction over the 2000s, a period referred to in foreign media as the "Nordic Tiger" years, or "Iceland's Boom Years". The economic boom led to a sharp increase in construction, with large redevelopment projects such as Harpa concert hall and conference centre and others. Many of these projects came to
808-722: A monophthong and adding either /i/ or /u/ to it. All the vowels can either be long or short; vowels in open syllables are long, and vowels in closed syllables are short. Icelandic retains many grammatical features of other ancient Germanic languages , and resembles Old Norwegian before much of its fusional inflection was lost. Modern Icelandic is still a heavily inflected language with four cases : nominative , accusative , dative and genitive . Icelandic nouns can have one of three grammatical genders : masculine, feminine or neuter. There are two main declension paradigms for each gender: strong and weak nouns , and these are further divided into subclasses of nouns, based primarily on
909-572: A more continental climate, including the Bothnian Bay basin in Scandinavia. Nonetheless, Reykjavík is one of the cloudiest and coolest capitals of any nation in the world. The highest temperature recorded in Reykjavík was 25.7 °C (78 °F), reported on 30 July 2008, while the lowest-ever recorded temperature was −24.5 °C (−12 °F), recorded on 21 January 1918. The coldest month on record
1010-593: A new political party, The Best Party , win six of 15 seats, and it formed a coalition with the Social Democratic Alliance; comedian Jón Gnarr became mayor. At the 2014 election, the Social Democratic Alliance had its best showing yet, gaining five seats in the council, while Bright Future (successor to the Best Party) received two seats and the two parties formed a coalition with the Left-Green movement and
1111-403: A protectionist language culture, however, this is deep-rooted ideologically primarily in relation to the forms of the language, while Icelanders in general seem to be more pragmatic as to domains of language use. Since the late 16th century, discussion has been ongoing on the purity of the Icelandic language. The bishop Oddur Einarsson wrote in 1589 that the language has remained unspoiled since
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#17328514814451212-535: A result, the Irish language has had some influence on both Faroese and Icelandic. The oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100. Many of the texts are based on poetry and laws traditionally preserved orally. The most famous of the texts, which were written in Iceland from the 12th century onward, are the sagas of Icelanders , which encompass the historical works and the Poetic Edda . The language of
1313-467: A small area. That is because it includes the capital, and has a much denser road network than the other regions. The service area is where the maintenance department of each service facility (which are in various towns and villages) can maintain the road, signs, tunnels etc. Icelandic language Icelandic ( / aɪ s ˈ l æ n d ɪ k / eyess- LAN -dik ; endonym : íslenska , pronounced [ˈistlɛnska] )
1414-624: A standard established in the 19th century, primarily by the Danish linguist Rasmus Rask . It is based strongly on an orthography laid out in the early 12th century by a document referred to as the First Grammatical Treatise by an anonymous author, who has later been referred to as the First Grammarian. The later Rasmus Rask standard was a re-creation of the old treatise, with some changes to fit concurrent Germanic conventions, such as
1515-436: A vital role in all cultural life in the country. The city is home to Iceland's main cultural institutions, boasts a flourishing arts scene and is renowned as a creative city with a diverse range of cultural happenings and dynamic grassroots activities. Most of the country's writers live in the city, and it also provides the setting for the majority of contemporary Icelandic literature – a development that has gone hand in hand with
1616-440: Is January 1918, with a mean temperature of −7.2 °C (19 °F). The warmest is July 2019, with a mean temperature of 13.4 °C (56 °F). The Reykjavík City Council governs the city of Reykjavík and is directly elected by those aged over 18 domiciled in the city. The council has 23 members who are elected using the open list method for four-year terms. The council selects members of boards, and each board controls
1717-508: Is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland , where it is the national language. Since it is a West Scandinavian language , it is most closely related to Faroese , western Norwegian dialects , and the extinct language Norn . It is not mutually intelligible with the continental Scandinavian languages ( Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish ) and
1818-533: Is a result of exposure to the maritime winds in its exposed west coast location that causes it to be much cooler in summer than similar latitudes in mainland Scandinavia . Contrasting this, winter days are milder than anywhere in far southern Sweden and the vast majority of Denmark . In fact, winter temperatures are comparable to those of New York City , which is more than 20 degrees further south. Reykjavík averages 147 days of rain (more than 1mm) per year. Droughts are uncommon, although they occur in some summers. In
1919-535: Is around 830MW, and the city has an average heating demand of 473 MW. Hot water for Reyjavík's district heating comes from two combined heat and power (CHP) geothermal power plants as well as lower temperature geothermal fields: Safnahúsið (the Culture House) was opened in 1909 and has a number of important exhibits. Originally built to house the National Library and National Archives and also previously
2020-576: Is characterized by peninsulas , coves, straits, and islands. During the Ice Age (up to 10,000 years ago) a large glacier covered parts of the city area, reaching as far out as Álftanes . Other parts of the city area were covered by sea water. In the warm periods and at the end of the Ice Age, some hills like Öskjuhlíð were islands. The former sea level is indicated by sediments (with clams) reaching (at Öskjuhlíð, for example) as far as 43 m (141 ft) above
2121-472: Is distinguished by a wide assortment of irregular declensions. Icelandic vocabulary is also deeply conservative, with the country's language regulator maintaining an active policy of coining terms based on older Icelandic words rather than directly taking in loanwords from other languages. Aside from the 300,000 Icelandic speakers in Iceland, Icelandic is spoken by about 8,000 people in Denmark, 5,000 people in
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#17328514814452222-404: Is evident in general language discourses, in polls, and in other investigations into Icelandic language attitudes. The general consensus on Icelandic language policy has come to mean that language policy and language ideology discourse are not predominantly state or elite driven; but rather, remain the concern of lay people and the general public. The Icelandic speech community is perceived to have
2323-511: Is more distinct from the most widely spoken Germanic languages, English and German . The written forms of Icelandic and Faroese are very similar, but their spoken forms are not mutually intelligible . The language is more conservative than most other Germanic languages. While most of them have greatly reduced levels of inflection (particularly noun declension ), Icelandic retains a four- case synthetic grammar (comparable to German , though considerably more conservative and synthetic) and
2424-647: Is not very well known and because those Icelanders not proficient in the other Scandinavian languages often have a sufficient grasp of English to communicate with institutions in that language (although there is evidence that the general English skills of Icelanders have been somewhat overestimated). The Nordic countries have committed to providing services in various languages to each other's citizens, but this does not amount to any absolute rights being granted, except as regards criminal and court matters. All Icelandic stops are voiceless and are distinguished as such by aspiration . Stops are realised post-aspirated when at
2525-403: Is said to be inspired by steam rising from hot springs in the region. The original name was Reykja r -vík , with an "r" suffix for the genitive singular of reykr ; the modern version reykja- uses the genitive plural. The name's meaning is still transparent in modern Icelandic, and in modern Norwegian ( røyk + vik ). The name originally referred to both the bay on the northern shore of
2626-550: Is still a conscious effort to create new words, especially for science and technology, with many societies publishing dictionaries, some with the help of The Icelandic Language Committee ( Íslensk málnefnd ). The Icelandic alphabet is notable for its retention of three old letters that no longer exist in the English alphabet : Þ, þ ( þorn , modern English "thorn"), Ð, ð ( eð , anglicised as "eth" or "edh") and Æ, æ (æsc, anglicised as "ash" or "asc"), with þ and ð representing
2727-413: Is the capital and largest city of Iceland . It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. Reykjavík has a population of around 140,000 as of 2023 (up from 121,822 in 2015). The Capital Region has a population of around 248,000. Reykjavík is believed to be the location of
2828-463: Is the centre of Iceland's cultural , economic , and governmental activity, and is a popular tourist destination among foreigners. It is among the cleanest, greenest, and safest cities in the world. According to legend, the first permanent Norse settlement in Iceland was established at Reykjavík by Ingólfr Arnarson circa AD 870, as described in the Book of Settlement . Ingólfr is said to have decided
2929-521: Is the centre of this heritage. It preserves manuscripts, conducts research on them and publishes texts for the public, in addition to offering research facilities and tutoring to foreign scholars and students. The Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register on 31 July 2009. Reykjavík city was designated as a UNESCO City of Literature in 2011 and joined then
3030-582: Is the intermediary between the contractors and the government. Although the word vegagerðin means "the road-makers", it is now an administrative organisation which employs mainly office staff, doing measuring, planning and tendering . Until 2021, the headquarters of Vegagerðin were in Reykjavík with other sites in Kópavogur and in Hafnarfjörður . In August 2021, all administrative activities were relocated to
3131-582: Is the legal owner of the roads and has the authority to execute construction of infrastructures on demand from the ministry. Until the 18th century there were no official roads in Iceland, only paths and barely visible tracks which people followed with the help of cairns for a few kilometers in either direction. In the 19th century, when fishing villages began to spring up on shores and sandbanks, infrastructure between farms and villages began to improve. As fishermen's camps became villages, with homes and workshops , they also became important trading posts for
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3232-513: The Marshall Plan , and in the 1950s and 1960s enormous progress was made in Icelandic infrastructure. In 1960 it was announced that the task of giving all populated areas road access was completed; the next step was to improve these wretched roads, to build bridges and tunnel and to improve road surfaces using asphalt . At the time, Vegagerðin was a very large organization in proportion to Iceland's population, with many workers and much equipment. In
3333-582: The Parliament in 2011, Icelandic is "the national language of the Icelandic people and the official language in Iceland"; moreover, "[p]ublic authorities shall ensure that its use is possible in all areas of Icelandic society". Iceland is a member of the Nordic Council , a forum for co-operation between the Nordic countries, but the council uses only Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish as its working languages (although
3434-545: The Pirate Party , which won one seat each. The Independence Party had its worst election ever, with only four seats. The mayor is appointed by the city council; usually one of the council members is chosen, but they may also appoint a mayor who is not a member of the council. The post was created in 1907 and advertised in 1908. Two applications were received, from Páll Einarsson , sheriff and town mayor of Hafnarfjörður and from Knud Zimsen , town councillor in Reykjavík. Páll
3535-474: The UNESCO Creatives Cities network. Iceland is one of the smallest linguistic areas in the world, with only around 330,000 inhabitants and very few speakers outside the country. The language has not changed much since the time of settlement in the 9th century and modern Icelanders can still read the original medieval texts with relative ease. Literature plays a vital role in cherishing and cultivating
3636-501: The bishop and members of parliament . Early Icelandic vocabulary was largely Old Norse with a few words being Celtic from when Celts first settled in Iceland. The introduction of Christianity to Iceland in the 11th century brought with it a need to describe new religious concepts . The majority of new words were taken from other Scandinavian languages ; kirkja ("church"), for example. Numerous other languages have influenced Icelandic: French brought many words related to
3737-444: The genitive singular and nominative plural endings of a particular noun. For example, within the strong masculine nouns, there is a subclass (class 1) that declines with -s ( hests ) in the genitive singular and -ar ( hestar ) in the nominative plural. However, there is another subclass (class 3) of strong masculine nouns that always declines with -ar ( hlutar ) in the genitive singular and -ir ( hlutir ) in
3838-520: The voiceless and voiced "th" sounds (as in English thin and this ), respectively, and æ representing the diphthong /ai/ which does not exist in English. The complete Icelandic alphabet is: The letters with diacritics , such as á and ö , are for the most part treated as separate letters and not variants of their derivative vowels. The letter é officially replaced je in 1929, although it had been used in early manuscripts (until
3939-440: The world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state ( Nuuk , the capital of Greenland , is slightly further north at 64°10' (about 4 km) but Greenland is a constituent country , not an independent state). Reykjavík has a subpolar oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfc , Trewartha : Eolk ) closely bordering on a subarctic climate ( Köppen : Dfc ) in the 0°C isotherm. The city has had its present climate classification since
4040-445: The 11th century, when the first texts were written on vellum . Modern speakers can understand the original sagas and Eddas which were written about eight hundred years ago. The sagas are usually read with updated modern spelling and footnotes, but otherwise are intact (as with recent English editions of Shakespeare's works). With some effort, many Icelanders can also understand the original manuscripts. According to an act passed by
4141-582: The 14th century) and again periodically from the 18th century. The letter z was formerly in the Icelandic alphabet, but it was officially removed in 1974, except in people's names. Ragnarsson, Baldur (1992). Mál og málsaga [ Language and language history ] (in Icelandic). Mál og Menning. ISBN 978-9979-3-0417-3 . Reykjav%C3%ADk Reykjavík ( / ˈ r eɪ k j ə v ɪ k , - v iː k / RAYK -yə-vik, -veek ; Icelandic: [ˈreiːcaˌviːk] )
Icelandic Road Administration - Misplaced Pages Continue
4242-462: The 16th century, especially in vowels (in particular, á , æ , au , and y / ý ). The letters -ý & -y lost their original meaning and merged with -í & -i in the period 1400 - 1600. Around the same time or a little earlier the letter -æ originally signifying a simple vowel, a type of open -e, formed into the double vowel -ai, a double vowel absent in the original Icelandic. The modern Icelandic alphabet has developed from
4343-455: The 1980s and 1990s, when the huge wave of privatisation in Iceland and Western Europe, independent contractors became more common in road construction, both in urban and rural areas. Vegagerðin reduced its direct labour workforce and began to rely more and more on private contractors for building roads and other infrastructure. Today Vegagerðin has no road building workforce or equipment: the work has been completely privatized. Thus Vegagerðin
4444-462: The British government to consent to the occupation, but it always declined on the basis of its policy of neutrality . For the remaining years of World War II , British and later American soldiers occupied camps in Reykjavík, and the number of foreign soldiers in Reykjavík became about the same as the local population of the city. The Royal Regiment of Canada formed part of the garrison in Iceland during
4545-480: The Danish Crown, and Danish traders continued to dominate trade in Iceland. Over the following decades, their business in Iceland expanded. After 1880, free trade was expanded to all nationalities, and the influence of Icelandic merchants started to grow. Icelandic nationalist sentiment gained influence in the 19th century, and the idea of Icelandic independence became widespread. Reykjavík, as Iceland's only city,
4646-530: The Faroes was Old Norse , which Norse settlers had brought with them during the time of the settlement of Faroe Islands ( landnám ) that began in 825. However, many of the settlers were not from Scandinavia , but descendants of Norse settlers in the Irish Sea region. In addition, women from Norse Ireland, Orkney , or Shetland often married native Scandinavian men before settling in the Faroe Islands and Iceland. As
4747-638: The Independence Party. Ólafur F. Magnússon , the leader of the F-list, was elected mayor on 24 January 2008, and in March 2009 the Independence Party was due to appoint a new mayor. This changed once again on 14 August 2008 when the fourth coalition of the term was formed, by the Independence Party and the Social Democratic Alliance, with Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir becoming mayor. The City Council election in May 2010 saw
4848-457: The Innréttingar, such as fisheries , sulphur mining , agriculture, and shipbuilding. The Danish Crown abolished monopoly trading in 1786 and granted six communities around the country an exclusive trading charter. Reykjavík was one of them and the only one to hold on to the charter permanently. 1786 is thus regarded as the date of the city's founding. Trading rights were limited to subjects of
4949-466: The Republic of Iceland was founded and a president , elected by the people, replaced the king; the office of the president was placed in Reykjavík. In the post-war years, the growth of Reykjavík accelerated. An exodus from the rural countryside began, largely because improved technology in agriculture reduced the need for manpower, and because of a population boom resulting from better living conditions in
5050-455: The Seltjarnarnes peninsula, but the suburbs reach far out to the south and east. Reykjavík is a spread-out city: most of its urban area consists of low-density suburbs, and houses are usually widely spaced. The outer residential neighbourhoods are also widely spaced from each other; in between them are the main traffic arteries and a lot of empty space. The city's latitude is 64°08' N, making it
5151-587: The United States, and more than 1,400 people in Canada, notably in the region known as New Iceland in Manitoba which was settled by Icelanders beginning in the 1880s. The state-funded Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies serves as a centre for preserving the medieval Icelandic manuscripts and studying the language and its literature. The Icelandic Language Council, comprising representatives of universities,
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#17328514814455252-432: The above examples, the conjugated verbs veit and fór are always the second element in their respective clauses. A distinction between formal and informal address ( T–V distinction ) had existed in Icelandic from the 17th century, but use of the formal variant weakened in the 1950s and rapidly disappeared. It no longer exists in regular speech, but may occasionally be found in pre-written speeches addressed to
5353-524: The arts, journalists, teachers, and the Ministry of Culture, Science and Education , advises the authorities on language policy . Since 1995, on 16 November each year, the birthday of 19th-century poet Jónas Hallgrímsson is celebrated as Icelandic Language Day . Icelandic is an Indo-European language and belongs to the North Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Icelandic is further classified as
5454-450: The beginning of the 20th century carriage trail tracks had formed from every village in the countryside. In the early 20th century a few automobiles had come to Iceland and streets had been formed in the largest towns. But roads were needed to connect settlements, and the government called for the old horse tracks to be upgraded to gravel roads . In 1918 the Icelandic government established
5555-602: The beginning of the 20th century. At 64° north, Reykjavík is characterized by extremes of day and night length over the course of the year. From 20 May to 24 July, daylight is essentially permanent as the sun never gets more than 5° below the horizon. Day length drops to less than five hours between 2 December and 10 January. The sun climbs just 3° above the horizon during this time. However, day length begins increasing rapidly during January and by month's end there are seven hours of daylight. Despite its northern latitude, temperatures very rarely drop below −15 °C (5 °F) in
5656-408: The beginning of the word, but pre-aspirated when occurring within a word. Scholten (2000 , p. 22) includes three extra phones: [ʔ l̥ˠ lˠ] . Word-final voiced consonants are devoiced pre-pausally, so that dag ('day (acc.)') is pronounced as [ˈtaːx] and dagur ('day (nom.)') is pronounced [ˈtaːɣʏr̥] . Icelandic has 8 monophthongs and 5 diphthongs. The diphthongs are created by taking
5757-406: The capital and six municipalities around it, was home to 233,034 people; that is about 64% of the country's population. On 1 January 2019, of the city's population of 128,793, immigrants of the first and second generation numbered 23,995 (18.6%), increasing from 12,352 (10.4%) in 2008 and 3,106 (2.9%) in 1998. The most common foreign citizens are Poles , Lithuanians , and Latvians . About 80% of
5858-484: The city centre, pavements and streets use geothermal snow-melting systems . Many driveways of private residences are also fitted with geothermal snow-melting systems. Geothermal hot water is also used to heat the city's numerous public pools and hot tubs. Natural hot water is used to heat roughly 90% of all buildings in Iceland. Of total annual use of geothermal energy of 39 PJ , space heating accounted for 48%. The total thermal capacity of Reykjavíks hot water production
5959-591: The city's foreign residents originate in European Union and EFTA member states, and over 58% are from the new member states of the EU, mainly former Eastern Bloc countries, which joined in 2004 , 2007 and 2013 . As of 1 January 2023, about 63% of the population was documented to live in the Greater Reykjavik area with a total of 242,995 inhabitants. Children of foreign origin form a more considerable minority in
6060-406: The city's schools: as many as a third in places. The city is also visited by thousands of tourists, students, and other temporary residents, at times outnumbering natives in the city centre. Reykjavík is divided into 10 districts: In addition there are hinterland areas (lightly shaded on the map) which are not assigned to any district. Borgartún is the financial centre of Reykjavík, hosting
6161-422: The city, serves international flights and is the main gateway to the country. Since 1962, there has been some controversy regarding the location of the airport, since it takes up a lot of valuable space in central Reykjavík. Reykjavík has two seaports : the old harbour near the city centre, which is mainly used by fishermen and cruise ships , and Sundahöfn in the east city, which is the largest cargo port in
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#17328514814456262-494: The council does publish material in Icelandic). Under the Nordic Language Convention , since 1987 Icelandic citizens have had the right to use Icelandic when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries, without becoming liable for any interpretation or translation costs. The convention covers visits to hospitals, job centres, the police, and social security offices. It does not have much effect since it
6363-628: The council which took over in June 2006. In October 2007 a new majority was formed on the council, consisting of members of the Progressive Party, the Social Democratic Alliance , the Left-Greens and the F-list (liberals and independents), after controversy regarding REI, a subsidiary of OR, the city's energy company. However, three months later the F-list formed a new majority together with
6464-467: The country and serves larger cruise ships . There are no public railways in Iceland, because of its sparse population, but the locomotives used to build the docks are on display. Proposals have been made for a high-speed rail link between the city and Keflavík . Volcanic activity provides all of Reykjavík and surrounding areas with geothermal district heating systems for both residential and industrial districts. In heavily trafficked areas, mostly in
6565-421: The country. A once-primitive village was rapidly transformed into a modern city. Private cars became common, and modern apartment complexes rose in the expanding suburbs. In 1972, Reykjavík hosted the famous World Chess Championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky . The 1986 Reykjavík Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev underlined Reykjavík's international status. Deregulation in
6666-502: The court and knightship; words in the semantic field of trade and commerce have been borrowed from Low German because of trade connections. In the late 18th century, linguistic purism began to gain noticeable ground in Iceland and since the early 19th century it has been the linguistic policy of the country. Nowadays, it is common practice to coin new compound words from Icelandic derivatives. Icelandic personal names are patronymic (and sometimes matronymic ) in that they reflect
6767-415: The current sea level. The hills of Öskjuhlíð and Skólavörðuholt appear to be the remains of former shield volcanoes which were active during the warm periods of the Ice Age. After the Ice Age, the land rose as the heavy load of the glaciers fell away, and began to look as it does today. The capital city area continued to be shaped by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions , such as the one 4,500 years ago in
6868-540: The early part of the war. The economic effects of the occupation were positive for Reykjavík: the unemployment of the Depression years vanished, and construction work began. The British built Reykjavík Airport , which remains in service today, mostly for short-haul flights (to domestic destinations and Greenland). The Americans, meanwhile, built Keflavík Airport , situated 50 km (31 mi) west of Reykjavík, which became Iceland's primary international airport. In 1944,
6969-439: The exclusive use of k rather than c . Various archaic features, such as the letter ð , had not been used much in later centuries. Rask's standard constituted a major change in practice. Later 20th-century changes include the use of é instead of je and the replacement of z with s in 1974. Apart from the addition of new vocabulary, written Icelandic has not changed substantially since
7070-440: The farms around them. Farmers traveled to the villages with their raw materials and traded these for imported goods, mostly Danes . This was, of course, not a new thing in Iceland. These places had long been sites for Danish tradesmen but as these trading posts became villages, communication and infrastructure were bound to improve due to increased traffic. In the 19th century, horse carriages became more common among farmers and by
7171-434: The financial sector and the computer revolution of the 1990s again transformed Reykjavík. The financial and IT sectors are now significant employers in the city. The city has fostered some world-famous musicians and artists in recent years, including musicians Björk ; Múm and Sigur Rós ; writer Sjón ; and visual artist Ragnar Kjartansson . Reykjavík is located in the southwest of Iceland . The Reykjavík area coastline
7272-445: The first permanent settlement in Iceland, which, according to Landnámabók , was established by Ingólfur Arnarson in 874 AD . Until the 18th century, there was no urban development in the city location. The city was officially founded in 1786 as a trading town and grew steadily over the following decades, as it transformed into a regional and later national centre of commerce , population, and governmental activities. Reykjavík
7373-573: The great narrative art of Iceland". The House of Halldór Laxness, Gljúfrasteinn , in the capital area can be visited year-round. A number of writers have won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize , among them are Thor Vilhjálmsson , Einar Már Guðmundsson and Sjón , and authors such as Guðrún Helgadóttir , Kristín Steinsdóttir and Ragnheiður Gestsdóttir are winners of The Nordic Children's Literature Prize . Crime writer Arnaldur Indriðason has won prizes abroad, including The Golden Dagger Award. Among other prizes awarded to writers from Reykjavík are
7474-422: The immediate father or mother of the child and not the historic family lineage. This system, which was formerly used throughout the Nordic area and beyond, differs from most Western systems of family name . In most Icelandic families, the ancient tradition of patronymics is still in use; i.e. a person uses their father's name (usually) or mother's name (increasingly in recent years) in the genitive form followed by
7575-508: The language, both original Icelandic literature and translations. Language undergoes constant renewal and development in fiction, and translation of foreign work has also been instrumental in conserving this thousand-year-old literary language. Award-winning authors Several Reykjavík writers have received international and Nordic awards. Halldór Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955 for "vivid epic power which has renewed
7676-457: The location of his settlement using a traditional Norse method: when land was in sight, he cast his high seat pillars overboard and promised to settle where the gods decided to bring them ashore. Two of his slaves then searched the coasts for three years before finding the pillars in the bay which eventually became the site of Reykjavík. The name is of Old Norse origin, derived from the roots reykr ('smoke') and vík ('bay'). The name
7777-557: The location of the National Museum and Natural History Museum, in 2000 it was re-modeled to promote the Icelandic national heritage. Many of Iceland's national treasures are on display, such as the Poetic Edda , and the Sagas in their original manuscripts. There are also changing exhibitions of various topics. Reykjavík is the capital, and in fact Iceland's only city, and as such, it plays
7878-520: The main concern of the government was to provide road access to all populated areas and to all farms. This was a great task and there was a modest budget . The roads were built by a large human workforce and they were narrow and uneven. The terrain was challenging for the roadbuilders as it is often rough, and most places in the Eastern and Westfjords are surrounded by dominating cliff mountains and headlands. Iceland became very wealthy after World War II via
7979-639: The middle voice is a voice or simply an independent class of verbs of its own, as every middle-voice verb has an active-voice ancestor, but sometimes with drastically different meaning, and the middle-voice verbs form a conjugation group of their own. Examples are koma ("come") vs. komast ("get there"), drepa ("kill") vs. drepast ("perish ignominiously") and taka ("take") vs. takast ("manage to"). Verbs have up to ten tenses, but Icelandic, like English, forms most of them with auxiliary verbs . There are three or four main groups of weak verbs in Icelandic, depending on whether one takes
8080-526: The modern city centre was farmland until the 18th century. In 1752, King Frederik V of Denmark donated the estate of Reykjavík to the Innréttingar [ is ] corporation. The leader of this movement was Skúli Magnússon [ is ] . In the 1750s, several houses were built to house the wool industry, which was Reykjavík's most important employer for a few decades and the original reason for its existence. Other industries were undertaken by
8181-495: The modern city centre, between Örfirisey [ is ] and Laugarnes , as well as the estate and farm of Ingólfr Arnarson. This form of the name fell out of use shortly after settlement, and the estate was referred to as Vík á Seltjarnarnesi until the name Reykjavík was revived when urban development began centuries later. The name has been translated as Bay of Smoke in English-language travel guides. The site of
8282-528: The morning of 10 May 1940, following the German occupation of Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940, four British warships approached Reykjavík and anchored in the harbour. In a few hours, the Allied occupation of Reykjavík was complete. There was no armed resistance, and taxi and truck drivers even assisted the invasion force, which initially had no motor vehicles. The Icelandic government had received many requests from
8383-418: The morpheme -son ("son") or -dóttir ("daughter") in lieu of family names. In 2019, changes were announced to the laws governing names. Icelanders who are officially registered with non-binary gender will be permitted to use the suffix -bur ("child of") instead of -son or -dóttir . A core theme of Icelandic language ideologies is grammatical, orthographic and lexical purism for Icelandic. This
8484-561: The most heavily populated areas and most frequently driven routes. Parking spaces are also plentiful in most areas. Public transportation consists of a bus system called Strætó bs . Route 1 (the Ring Road) runs through the city outskirts and connects the city to the rest of Iceland. Reykjavík Airport is positioned inside the city, just south of the city centre. It is used for domestic flights, general aviation and medical flights. Keflavík International Airport , located around 40km southwest of
8585-511: The mountain range Bláfjöll , when the lava coming down the Elliðaá valley reached the sea at the bay of Elliðavogur. The largest river to run through Reykjavík is the Elliðaá River, which is non-navigable. It offers salmon fishing within the city limits. Mount Esja , at 914 m (2,999 ft), is the highest mountain in the vicinity of Reykjavík. The city of Reykjavík is mostly located on
8686-513: The new headquarters in Garðabær . Vegagerðin has its headquarters in Garðabær near the capital, Reykjavík , but its activity in the countryside is controlled from outposts in various towns and the country is divided into four administrative divisions. Those are South, Southwest, Northwest and Northeast. Each of these is subdivided into two service areas, except for the Southwest area which covers only
8787-445: The nominative plural. Additionally, Icelandic permits a quirky subject , that is, certain verbs have subjects in an oblique case (i.e. other than the nominative). Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are declined in the four cases and for number in the singular and plural. Verbs are conjugated for tense , mood , person , number and voice . There are three voices: active, passive and middle (or medial), but it may be debated whether
8888-505: The offices of Vegamálastjóri (Director of Roads) and Vitamálastjóri (Director of Lighthouses). The latter was an officer overseeing lighthouses and sea transportation and the office of Vegamálastjóri was the predecessor of the Vegagerð Ríkisins institution which was formed a few years later and is now called Vegagerðin . The history of road construction in Iceland can be divided into two eras: pre-1960 and post-1960. Before 1960
8989-503: The rapid expansion of the city in the past 100 years or so. Reykjavík is home to Icelandic medieval literature, including the Sagas of the Icelanders and the Poetic Edda , landmarks of world literature still widely read and translated today. This literary heritage is the core of the nation's identity and narrative art is the single most important part of its cultural history. The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík
9090-459: The sagas is Old Icelandic , a western dialect of Old Norse . The Dano-Norwegian , then later Danish rule of Iceland from 1536 to 1918 had little effect on the evolution of Icelandic (in contrast to the Norwegian language), which remained in daily use among the general population. Though more archaic than the other living Germanic languages, Icelandic changed markedly in pronunciation from the 12th to
9191-496: The summer of 2007, no rain was measured for one month. July and August are the warmest months of the year on average and January and February the coldest. Summer tends to be the sunniest season, although May averages the most sunshine of any individual month. Overall, the city receives around 1,300 annual hours of sunshine, which is comparable with other places in northern and north-western Europe such as Ireland and Scotland , but substantially less than equally northern regions with
9292-428: The time it functioned only as an advisory assembly, advising the king about Icelandic affairs. The location of Alþingi in Reykjavík effectively established the city as the capital of Iceland. In 1874, Iceland was given a constitution ; with it, Alþingi gained some limited legislative powers and in essence became the institution that it is today. The next step was to move most of the executive power to Iceland: Home Rule
9393-446: The time the ancient literature of Iceland was written. Later in the 18th century the purism movement grew and more works were translated into Icelandic, especially in areas that Icelandic had hardly ever been used in. Many neologisms were introduced, with many of them being loan-translations. In the early 19th century, due to the influence of romanticism , importance was put on the purity of spoken language as well. The written language
9494-747: The winter. The proximity to the Arctic Circle and the strong moderation of the Atlantic Ocean in the Icelandic coast (influence of North Atlantic Current , an extension of the Gulf Stream ) shape a relatively mild winter and cool summer. The city's coastal location does make it prone to wind, however, and gales are common in winter (influence of the Icelandic Low ). Summers are cool, with temperatures fluctuating between 10 and 15 °C (50 and 59 °F), rarely exceeding 20 °C (68 °F). This
9595-455: The word order is fairly flexible, and every combination may occur in poetry; SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV and OVS are all allowed for metrical purposes. However, as with most Germanic languages, Icelandic usually complies with the V2 word order restriction, so the conjugated verb in Icelandic usually appears as the second element in the clause, preceded by the word or phrase being emphasised. For example: In
9696-479: Was also brought closer to the spoken language, as the sentence structure of literature had previously been influenced by Danish and German . The changes brought by the purism movement have had the most influence on the written language, as many speakers use foreign words freely in speech but try to avoid them in writing. The success of the many neologisms created from the movement has also been variable as some loanwords have not been replaced with native ones. There
9797-453: Was appointed on 7 May and was mayor for six years. At that time the city mayor received a salary of 4,500 ISK per year and 1,500 ISK for office expenses. The current mayor is Einar Þorsteinsson [ is ] . Reykjavík is by far the largest and most populous settlement in Iceland. The municipality of Reykjavík had a population of 131,136 on 1 January 2020, comprising 36% of the country's population. The Capital Region , which includes
9898-466: Was central to such ideas. Advocates of an independent Iceland realized that a strong Reykjavík was fundamental to that objective. All the important events in the history of the independence struggle were important to Reykjavík as well. In 1845 the Alþingi , the general assembly formed in 930 AD, was re-established in Reykjavík; it had been suspended a few decades earlier when it was located at Þingvellir . At
9999-642: Was granted in 1904 when the office of Minister for Iceland was established in Reykjavík. On 1 December 1918, Iceland became a sovereign country, the Kingdom of Iceland , in personal union with the Crown of Denmark . By the 1920s and 1930s, most of the growing Icelandic fishing trawler fleet sailed from Reykjavík; cod production was its main industry, but the Great Depression hit Reykjavík hard with unemployment , and labour union struggles sometimes became violent. On
10100-582: Was historically the city's ruling party; it had an overall majority from its establishment in 1929 until 1978, when it narrowly lost. From 1978 until 1982, there was a three-party coalition composed of the People's Alliance , the Social Democratic Party , and the Progressive Party . In 1982, the Independence Party regained an overall majority, which it held for three consecutive terms. The 1994 election
10201-449: Was won by Reykjavíkurlistinn (the R-list), an alliance of Icelandic socialist parties, led by Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir . This alliance won a majority in three consecutive elections, but was dissolved for the 2006 election when five different parties were on the ballot. The Independence Party won seven seats, and together with the one Progressive Party it were able to form a new majority in
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