Overview
About Thingvellir National Park
An assembly in the open air
Þingvellir means Assembly Plains. The Alþing was founded here around 930 and met at this site until 1798. It was more than a place for making laws: people gathered to settle disputes, trade and meet. Lögberg, the Law Rock, was a focal point of the early assembly. Knowing that history gives the grassy plain beneath the cliffs a different meaning.
Reading the landscape
The valley records overlapping stories of ice, volcanic eruptions and movement of the ground. Lava spread across the area after the last glacial period; later sinking and rifting renewed the faults. The exposed rift walls reveal sections through those lava layers. Rather than looking only for a single crack between continents, notice the wider landscape of cliffs, fissures and water.
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