Iceland

Iceland is the North Atlantic island on the tectonic rift south of the Arctic Circle, warmed by the Gulf Stream into green summers, volcanoes, geysers and glacial rivers over a lava plateau, four hundred thousand people round the capital Reykjavík speaking the old Norse tongue. Ingólfr Arnarson planted the first farm in 874; Norwegians with Gaelic slaves filled the valleys and the Althing of 930 made a commonwealth of chieftains that outlawed kings for three centuries. Norway took the island in the thirteenth century, Denmark inherited it, and Copenhagen's monopoly starved it while volcanoes buried it. Jón Sigurðsson's long campaign won a constitution, the 1918 Act of Union made Iceland a sovereign kingdom under Denmark's crown, and with Denmark occupied the Althing proclaimed the republic in 1944. American airfields, British trawlers chased out in three cod wars, aluminium smelters on waterfall power and tourists at the Blue Lagoon carried the saga republic to the present.