Hrísey () is a small island off the north coast of

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

, situated approximately north of

Akureyri Akureyri (, ) is a town in northern Iceland, the country's fifth most populous Municipalities of Iceland, municipality (under the official name of Akureyrarbær , 'town of Akureyri') and the largest outside the Capital Region (Iceland), Capital R ...

, in

Eyjafjörður Eyjafjörður (, ''Island Fjord'') is one of the longest fjords in Iceland. It is located in the central north of the country. Situated by the fjord is the country's fourth most populous municipality, Akureyri. Physical geography The fjord is ...

, at . Since 2004, the island has been a part of the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

of Akureyri, having previously been a municipality in its own right. Hrísey island itself has a total land area of . It is about long and across at its widest in the south. It is the second-largest island off the coast of Iceland (after

Heimaey Heimaey (), is an Icelandic island. At , it is the largest island in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago, and the largest and most populated island off the Icelandic coast. Heimaey is off the south coast of Iceland. It is the only populated isla ...

in the

Vestmannaeyjar Vestmannaeyjar (, sometimes anglicized as Westman Islands) is a municipality and archipelago off the south coast of Iceland. The largest island, Heimaey, has a population of 4,414, most of whom live in the archipelago's main town, Vestmannaeyja ...

). It has a population of approximately 120 people and has been continuously inhabited since the

Settlement of Iceland The settlement of Iceland ( ) is generally believed to have begun in the second half of the ninth century, when Norsemen, Norse settlers migrated across the North Atlantic. The reasons for the migration are uncertain: later in the Middle Ages Icel ...

. The island is connected to the mainland by a ferry service to Árskógssandur, a fifteen-minute sailing. Historically, the island was used as a base for the fishing industry, first by Norwegians and Swedes, and then by Icelanders. By the late nineteenth century, it housed a herring salting factory.

Overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing Fish stocks, fish stock), resu ...

in Icelandic waters led to a steep decline in the fishing industry in the 1960s, and the last fish freezing plant on Hrísey, owned by the Eyjafjörður Co-operative Society, closed in 1999. More recently, Hrísey has developed a reputation as a birdwatching destination. There are no natural predators on the island, making it an ideal bird sanctuary. The northern part of Hrísey, Ystabæjarland, is a privately owned nature reserve and the killing of birds is forbidden on the rest of the island. Among the forty species of bird on the island are the

ptarmigan ''Lagopus'' is a genus of birds in the grouse subfamily commonly known as ptarmigans (). The genus contains four living species with numerous described subspecies, all living in tundra or cold upland areas. Taxonomy and etymology The genus ''L ...

Arctic tern The Arctic tern (''Sterna paradisaea'') is a tern in the family Laridae. This bird has a circumpolar breeding distribution covering the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe (as far south as Brittany), Asia, and North America (as far south ...

, and eider duck.

References

External links

Accommodation in HriseyA short guide to the islands of Eyjafjörður
{{Authority control Islands of Iceland Eyjafjörður