The story of Thingvellir National Park

You are standing in the fields where Iceland was born. Þingvellir means "assembly fields", and from 930 until 1798 this was the site of the Alþing, the annual parliament of Iceland. Its first sessions, in the summer of 930, are said to mark the founding of the nation.

Why here? The owner of this land had been found guilty of murder, so it was declared public, and it was within reach of the most populous regions, although the longest journey a chieftain had to make still took 17 days. The Lawspeaker, elected for three years, recited the law from the Law Rock, the Lögberg, and before the law was written down he had to know it by heart.

For two weeks each year people came from all over the country, sometimes thousands, living in booths of turf and rock. The park lies in a rift valley on the boundary between the North American and Eurasian plates, and has been a World Heritage Site since 2004.