Thingvellir National Park, Iceland: Where the Continents Meet

Walk down from the viewing platform at Hakið and within a hundred metres you are standing in Almannagjá, a long, straight cleft in dark lava with a sheer rock wall on one side. That wall is the edge of the North American plate, and the green, sunken valley below it is where the land is being slowly pulled apart. It is also where Icelanders met in the open air for more than eight centuries to make their laws. Thingvellir National Park (Þingvellir in Icelandic) is the one place in the country where geology and national history share the same few square kilometres. This guide explains what you are looking at, walk by walk, and how much effort it takes. It is the first stop on Day 3 of our Iceland cultural and wilderness small group tour, on the way north from Reykjavík to Borgarfjordur.

Reading the rift at Thingvellir National Park

Iceland sits astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the seam along which the North American and Eurasian plates are moving apart. In the south of the country the plates slide past one another, but at Thingvellir, as the national park explains, they break apart and the land between them sinks. The result is a rift valley, or graben, about seven kilometres wide between the Almannagjá fault on the west and Heiðargjá on the east, floored with lava that flowed from a shield volcano south of Mount Hrafnabjörg some 10,000 years ago. Since then, according to the park, the valley floor has dropped by about 40 metres and widened by about 70 metres. Away from the faults, the plates separate at roughly two centimetres a year.

The movement is not smooth. Strain builds up for long periods and is released in bursts; the last one at Thingvellir came in the spring of 1789. When two strong earthquakes struck South Iceland in the summer of 2000, 40 to 50 kilometres away, stones still fell from the walls of the rifts here. The park also points out a refinement that most guidebooks skip: the land on the eastern side of the valley belongs, strictly speaking, to a small block called the Hreppar microplate, wedged between the two big plates. So the popular phrase about standing between two continents is true in spirit rather than to the metre. For the wider story of how volcanoes and ice shaped the island, see our guide to Iceland’s lunar landscapes and geology.

Walking down Almannagjá to Lögberg

Almannagjá, the “gorge of all people”, is the most dramatic of the faults: the official assembly-site map describes it as a rift some seven kilometres long marking the eastern boundary of the North American plate. The visitor centre at Hakið stands at its upper end beside a viewing platform, and from there a broad, well-made path runs down into the gorge. On your left the high western wall rises in layered cliffs of lava; on your right a lower, broken wall separates you from the plain. The map gives about 550 metres, or six minutes on foot, from the visitor centre to Lögberg, the Law Rock.

Lögberg was the heart of the assembly during the Commonwealth period, from 930 to 1262: the place where the Lawspeaker recited the law, rulings were announced and anyone attending could stand up and speak. Nobody knows exactly where it was. The park names two candidates: the flat ledge at the top of the slope called Hallurinn, where the flagpole now stands, and a spot within Almannagjá itself, against the higher rock wall. Our article on the Althing, Iceland’s ancient parliament covers how the assembly, its courts and its Law Council actually worked. Here it is enough to stand by the flag, look across the plain and picture the summer gathering below.

The assembly plain: river, booths and church

The plain itself has changed since the first assembly. The Sturlunga saga records that the Öxará river was diverted into Almannagjá so that people at the assembly had fresh water close at hand, and the river has since reshaped the site with its sediment while subsidence let the lake creep closer. The park estimates that the ground has sunk almost four metres since 930. Those attending stayed in temporary booths of turf and stone; UNESCO counts fragments of around 50. Most of the grassy outlines you see date from the 17th and 18th centuries, probably on older foundations. Only two visible ruins, Njálsbúð and the large Biskupabúð north of the church, are thought to go back to the Commonwealth.

Darker memories are here too. The park notes that no punishments were carried out at Thingvellir in the Commonwealth period, but after the “Great Judgment” of 1564, corporal punishment became frequent, and place names such as Drekkingarhylur, the Drowning Pool in the Öxará where women convicted under that law were drowned, are a sober reminder.

Across the river stand the little church, Þingvallakirkja, and the white gables of the farmhouse Þingvallabær. A church has stood at the assembly site since about 1017, soon after Iceland adopted Christianity at the Althing in the year 1000. The present one was consecrated in 1859, and its spire was rebuilt in 1907. Inside is a pulpit of 1683, and the spire holds three bells, one of them made to ring in independence in 1944. The oldest part of Þingvallabær dates from 1930; it now serves as the Prime Minister’s official summer residence. At the time of writing the church is usually open in summer only, when a park ranger is present.

East of the church, the long Flosagjá fault holds clear water up to 25 metres deep. One branch of it, Nikulásargjá, was bridged in 1907, after which visitors began throwing coins into it, and it has been known as Peningagjá, the “Money Fault”, ever since. The fault figures in no folk tale; the park prefers to see the coins in the icy water as a symbol of the great natural resource the water itself is.

Öxarárfoss and the northern gorge

Follow the path north along Almannagjá and you reach Öxarárfoss, where the Öxará drops over the western rift wall. The official map gives its height as about 13 metres and notes that the river is believed to have been diverted to its present course in early times. It is about 1.6 kilometres, or 20 minutes, from the visitor centre. A little further on, Stekkjargjá is a narrow section of the same rift where, the map records, sheep were once milked and convicted thieves hanged. For those who prefer less walking, a car park below Öxarárfoss puts the waterfall within a much shorter stroll.

Lake Þingvallavatn and Silfra

The southern edge of the assembly site is Þingvallavatn, Iceland’s largest natural lake at about 84 square kilometres. Its deepest point, 114 metres, lies below sea level. Around 90 per cent of the water reaching the lake travels underground, and meltwater from the Langjökull glacier, about 50 kilometres to the north, takes 20 to 30 years to filter through the porous lava. That long filtration explains the startling clarity of the fissures. The lake also has an unusual ecology: three of Iceland’s five freshwater fish species live here, including four distinct forms of Arctic charr.

Silfra, a fissure at the northern end of the lake, is famous among divers and snorkellers for visibility of around 100 metres. It is not, as often claimed, the gap between the plates; the park describes it as one of about a hundred fissures in a zone some five kilometres wide. At the time of writing, snorkelling and diving here require a permit, usually booked through a licensed operator, and you may never enter alone; divers need a dry-suit qualification and a dry suit, snorkellers a dry suit or thick wetsuit, in water of two to four degrees. Check thingvellir.is before you go, and treat it as an optional extra rather than part of a standard visit.

From the Althing to the republic

The assembly met at Thingvellir from around 930 until 1798. Many of the great scenes of the Icelandic sagas are set here: Njáls saga describes the uproar at Lögberg in the year 1000 when pagans and Christians each denounced the other’s laws, before the Lawspeaker Þorgeir declared that Iceland would be Christian. The assembly itself grew out of the communities described in our history of the settlement of Iceland. In the 19th century Thingvellir became the symbol of the independence movement, with political meetings held here from 1848. A law of 1928 made it a protected national shrine, the national park was founded in 1930, and the Republic of Iceland was proclaimed here in 1944. UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List in 2004 as a cultural site.

Is Thingvellir National Park worth visiting?

Yes: Thingvellir is the most important historic site in Iceland and one of the easiest places in the world to see the effects of plate tectonics with your own eyes. It rewards a little background reading more than almost anywhere else on the island, because the grassy plain looks modest until you know what happened on it. Even on a grey day, the walk down Almannagjá is a powerful introduction to the country.

How long do you need at Thingvellir?

Allow about one and a half to two hours to walk down Almannagjá to Lögberg, cross to the church and see Peningagjá, and longer if you add Öxarárfoss. The park says its interactive exhibition at the Hakið visitor centre, Heart of Iceland, takes about 40 minutes, and it carries an admission charge at the time of writing. There is no charge to enter the park itself, but a parking service fee applies at the main car parks.

How much walking is involved at Thingvellir?

The core walk is short and mostly downhill: about 550 metres from the visitor centre to Lögberg, and some 850 metres to Flosagjá, on broad, well-made paths. The steepest part is the descent from the viewing platform into the gorge. If you are visiting independently with a driver, you can walk down from Hakið and arrange to be met at one of the lower car parks, such as P2 below Öxarárfoss or P5 near Valhöll, rather than climb back up. The park map marks accessible parking near the church end of the site. Paths can be wet, icy or muddy depending on the season, and the rift funnels the wind, so wear sturdy shoes with good grip and bring a windproof layer and gloves even in summer. Sections of path can be closed at short notice for safety, so at the time of writing it is wise to check thingvellir.is and safetravel.is before you go.

When is the best time to visit Thingvellir?

Summer, from June to August, brings the longest days, open paths and the church open to visitors, but also the most coaches, so early morning or early evening is quieter. Autumn colours the birch scrub orange and gold, while in winter the gorge can be beautiful under snow but icy underfoot, with only a few hours of daylight. Weather changes fast at any time of year: check the Icelandic Met Office forecast at vedur.is and road conditions at umferdin.is before setting out.

Thingvellir on Day 3 of the tour

On Day 3 we leave Reykjavík for Thingvellir National Park, the former site of the world’s oldest parliament and, in the tour’s words, an excellent place to learn about the movement of the earth’s continental plates and how it affects Iceland today. The day continues to the Borgarfjordur region, with the Hraunfossar waterfalls, where water seems to emerge from beneath a lava field, and the Deildartunguhver hot springs, which supply local farms and villages with hot water. It ends at Reykholt, home of the saga writer Snorri Sturluson, with a lecture on Snorri, the Middle Ages and the struggle for independence.

Thingvellir is usually seen as one stop on the Golden Circle route from Reykjavík. Our tour treats it differently: the rift valley opens the journey on Day 3, and the other two Golden Circle sights come near the end, on Day 16, when the group visits the two-stage Gullfoss waterfall and the Strokkur geyser on the way back to Reykjavík. Our Iceland ring road itinerary follows the whole 17-day route region by region. The tour is rated Level 2, Moderate: three to five hours of activity a day, the equivalent of walking up to eight kilometres on uneven ground. An Odyssey Program Leader travels with the group throughout.

Few places explain a country as quickly as Thingvellir. In one short walk you see the rift that made Iceland and the plain where Icelanders first governed themselves. On the Iceland cultural and wilderness small group tour, a small group of up to 16 mature travellers begins there on Day 3, with an Odyssey Program Leader, before heading north into the saga country of Borgarfjordur.