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Ólafsvík
Ólafsvík () is a small town in Iceland on the northern side of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. At one point in the 17th and 18th centuries, commercial vessels sailed between Ólafsvík and Denmark, and the village was one of the larger trading ports in Iceland. Ólafsvík became certified trading place, authorized by the Danish King and Danish authorities, in 1687. It is situated near the western end of the Snæfellsnes peninsula, on the north coast of the peninsula. It is on route 54, between Grundarfjörður and Hellissandur. At 23 degrees 42 minutes West, it is the westernmost settlement of its size in Europe. Administratively it is in the Western Region (Iceland), Western Region and it is the administrative centre of the municipality of Snæfellsbær which also includes the tiny villages of Arnarstapi, Hellnar, Rif and Hellissandur. , it had 1,010 inhabitants. Overview Perhaps because of its situation on the bay of Breiðafjörður, the village was the first in Iceland to ...
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Municipalities Of Iceland
The municipalities of Iceland ( ; Grammatical number#Overview, sing.  ) are local administrative areas in Iceland that provide a number of services to their inhabitants such as kindergartens, elementary schools, waste management, social services, public housing, public transportation, services to senior citizens and disability, disabled people. They also govern zoning and can voluntarily take on additional functions if they have the budget for it. The autonomy of municipalities over their own matters is guaranteed by the Constitution of Iceland, Icelandic constitution. History The origin of the municipalities can be traced back to the Commonwealth of Iceland, commonwealth period in the 10th century when rural communities were organized into Hreppur, communes (''hreppar'' ) with the main purpose of providing help for the poorest individuals in society. When urbanization began in Iceland during the 18th and 19th centuries, several independent townships (''kaupstaðir'' ) were ...
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List Of Cities And Towns In Iceland
Most Municipalities of Iceland, municipalities in Iceland include more than one settlement. For example, four localities (Selfoss (town), Selfoss, Stokkseyri, Eyrarbakki, and Municipalities of Iceland, Tjarnabyggð) can all be found in the municipality of Árborg. A number of municipalities only contain a single locality, while there are also a few municipalities in which no localities exist. All localities in Iceland can only be located within a single municipality, i.e. they cannot straddle multiple municipality borders. Some municipalities, such as Hafnarfjörður and Akranes, also share the same name with a locality. However, these localities are not always situated in their namesake municipalities. In those cases, this does not necessarily mean that they there are no other localities included in that particular municipality. Even when they are the only locality there, they do not always encompass the span of that municipality's entire land area. List of localities The ...
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Snæfellsbær
Snæfellsbær () is a municipality located in western Iceland, in the southwestern part of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. Its administrative centre is Hellissandur and the majority of the residents live in the coastal villages of Ólafsvík, then Hellissandur and Rif. There is a small airfield near Rif and at Gufuskálar the Hellissandur longwave radio mast. Along the municipality's south-east coast is the settlement of Búðir and the Hótel Búðir and closer to the volcano of Snæfellsjökull are the coastal villages of Hellnar and Arnarstapi. Twin towns – sister cities Snæfellsbær is twinned with: * Vestmanna Vestmanna is a town in the Faroe Islands on the west of the island of Streymoy. It was formerly a ferry port, until an undersea tunnel, the Vágatunnilin, was built from Vágar to Kvívík and Stykkið further south on Streymoy. The cliffs we ..., Faroe Islands See also * Búðir * Djúpalónssandur References External links * Municipalities of I ...
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Snæfellsnes
The Snæfellsnes () is a peninsula situated to the west of Borgarfjörður, in western Iceland. The peninsula has a volcanic origin having the Snæfellsnes volcanic belt down its centre, and the Snæfellsjökull volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ..., regarded as one of the symbols of Iceland, at its western tip. With its height of , it is the highest mountain on the peninsula and has a glacier at its peak (''jökull'' means "glacier" in Icelandic language, Icelandic). The volcano can be seen on clear days from Reykjavík, a distance of about . The mountain is also known as the setting of the novel ''Journey to the Center of the Earth'' by the French author Jules Verne. The area surrounding Snæfellsjökull has been designated one of the four national parks b ...
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Constituencies Of Iceland
Iceland is divided into six Constituency, constituencies for the purpose of selecting Legislator, representatives to Althing, parliament.National Electoral Commission of Iceland 2013, p. 4 History The current division was established by a 1999 Constitution of Iceland, constitution amendment and was an attempt to balance the weight of different districts of the country whereby voters in the rural districts malapportionment, have greater representation per head than voters in Reykjavík city and its suburbs. The new division comprises three countryside constituencies (NW, NE and S) and three city constituencies (RN, RS and SW).National Electoral Commission of Iceland 2013, p. 5 The imbalance of votes between city and country still exists and a provision in the election law states that if the number of votes per seat in parliament in one constituency goes below half of what it is in any other constituency, one seat shall be transferred between them. This has occurred three times, in ...
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Volcanism Of Iceland
:''The volcano system in Iceland that started activity on August 17, 2014, and ended on February 27, 2015, is Bárðarbunga.'' :''The volcano in Iceland that erupted in May 2011 is Grímsvötn.'' Iceland experiences frequent volcanic activity, due to its location both on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary, and being over a hotspot. Nearly thirty volcanoes are known to have erupted in the Holocene epoch; these include Eldgjá, source of the largest lava eruption in human history. Some of the various eruptions of lava, gas and ash have been both destructive of property and deadly to life over the years, as well as disruptive to local and European air travel. Volcanic systems and volcanic zones of Iceland Holocene volcanism in Iceland is mostly to be found in the ''Neovolcanic Zone'', comprising the Reykjanes volcanic belt (RVB), the West volcanic zone (WVZ), the Mid-Iceland belt (MIB), the East volcanic zone (EVZ) and the North volcanic zone (NVZ). ...
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Longwave Radio Mast Hellissandur
The Hellissandur longwave radio mast ( ) is a tall guyed radio mast formerly used for longwave radio transmissions of RÚV (The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service). It is situated at , near Hellissandur on the Snæfellsnes peninsula of West Iceland. It is currently the tallest longwave radio mast in the world and the tallest above ground structure in Western Europe. It formed part of RÚV's longwave service. It was intended to fill in gaps of the FM radio, serve seafarers and as a critical communications facility. It previously operated in parallel with the less powerful Eiðar longwave transmitter to form nationwide longwave coverage, but Eiðar was demolished in 2023. The mast, which is among the tallest structures in Western Europe, is insulated against the ground, and guyed at five levels by steel ropes, which are subdivided by insulators. It was built in 1963 to replace the tall LORAN-C mast, constructed in 1959 for the North Atlantic LORAN-C chain (GRD 7970 ...
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Snæfellsjökull
Snæfellsjökull (, ''snow-fell glacier'') is a 700,000-year-old glacier-capped stratovolcano in western Iceland. It is situated on the westernmost part of the Snæfellsnes peninsula. Sometimes it may be seen from the city of Reykjavík over Faxa Bay, at a distance of . The mountain is one of the most famous sites of Iceland, primarily due to the novel ''Journey to the Center of the Earth'' (1864 in literature, 1864) by Jules Verne, in which the protagonists find the entrance to a passage leading to the center of the Earth on Snæfellsjökull. The mountain is part of Snæfellsjökull National Park (Icelandic: ''Þjóðgarðurinn Snæfellsjökull''). Snæfellsjökull was visible from an extreme distance due to an Fata Morgana (mirage), arctic mirage on 17 July 1939. Captain Robert Bartlett (explorer), Robert Bartlett of the ''Effie M. Morrissey'' sighted Snæfellsjökull from a position some distant. In August 2012, the summit was ice-free for the first time in recorded history ...
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Breiðafjörður
Breiðafjörður (, ''wide fjord'') is a large shallow bay, about wide and long, to the west of Iceland. It separates the region of the Westfjords (Vestfirðir) from the Snæfellsnes peninsula to the south. Breiðafjörður is encircled by mountains, including Kirkjufell and the glacier Snæfellsjökull on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, and the Látrabjarg bird cliffs at the tip of the Westfjords. Numerous smaller fjords extend inland from Breiðafjörður, the largest being Hvammsfjörður at its southeastern corner. An interesting feature of the bay is that the land to the north was formed about 15 million years ago, whereas the land to the south was formed less than half that time ago.. Breiðafjörður therefore was formed by tectonic movements and all the islands and skerries were made by volcanic eruptions to form ridges and craters that mostly line up in an east-west position. Nature Breiðafjörður has a land and seascape consisting of shallow seas, small fjords and ba ...
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Grundarfjörður
Grundarfjörður () is a town in the north of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in the west of Iceland. It is situated between a mountain range and the sea. The nearby mountain Kirkjufell forms a small peninsula. Overview The town received the right to do commerce in 1786. Around 1800, French merchants came to Iceland and lived in Grundarfjörður, where they constructed a church and a hospital of their own. The town became wealthy through the fishing industry, and this wealth shows in the style of the original, luxurious houses being built. The road to nearby Stykkishólmur crosses a lava field called ''Berserkjahraun'' . The name of the lava field comes from the Eyrbyggja saga, according to which two ''Berserkers'' were slain here by their master, because one of them fell in love with his master's daughter. Twin town * Paimpol, Brittany. Grundarfjörður and Paimpol in Brittany in northwest France have strong historical connections. Between 1852 and 1935, Breton sailors from Paim ...
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