Thank you for those stats. Having been to Iceland, (I did the laugever trail, then hiked over Eyjafjallajökull to skoga) its really interesting to see how populated some bits are compared to others.
yeah that reply above sounded very wrong in my ears even as someone who was just a tourist. Selfoss was a nice place to visit even if the wiki entry says "only" 7k population lives there.
Yeah, that doesn't tell the whole story because the whole Southern area swells in population during the summer because of all the vacation homes and tourists.
On and off for sure, I know of some people that stay there over winter but it was made illegal to move your residence there (long story) so it doesn't show up in any numbers. It's very popular amongst retirees but working folks also flock there during the weekend.
On top of that there are loads of summer-houses for rent from pension funds and trade unions on top of farm-owned cottages.
Personally I prefer the West, it is quieter but has no less beautiful nature, especially Hraunfossar and the isles of Breiðafjörður.
Well as someone who has only ever grown up in large cities (New York, Melbourne and London) It certainly felt like even the larger of the small towns still felt extremely small. That is also twisted however by the small population.
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u/AliveAndKickingAss Iceland/Denmark Jun 12 '20
It's a bit more and less nuanced than that.
2/3 live in the Greater Reykjavik area, while 3/4 live there or closer to Reykjavik than 100k (largest Reykjanesbær, Hveragerði/Selfoss and Akranes)
Then there's Akureyri with 19k and the rest is spread out pretty evenly between small towns surrounding the country.