Reykjavík

Reykjavík is the capital of Iceland, on the southwest coast of the island beside Faxaflói Bay. Its name means smoky bay, after the steam from hot springs that the first settler saw on the shore. Hallgrímskirkja, a white concrete church whose tower is shaped like columns of basalt, rises over the center of the city.

Ingólfur Arnarson, a Norse chieftain, made his farm at the bay in the 9th century, by tradition the first permanent settlement in Iceland. The farm stayed small until the 18th century, when Skúli Magnússon opened wool workshops there, and the town received its trading charter in 1786. It grew through the 19th century as the seat of the Danish governor and of new schools and newspapers. Reykjavík became the capital of the independent Republic of Iceland in 1944. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev held their summit at Höfði House in the city in the 1980s.

Össur makes prosthetic legs, feet and knee braces and has its headquarters in Reykjavík, and CCP Games develops the space game EVE Online in the city. Brim lands cod, haddock and redfish at the Old Harbor and freezes them for export. Reykjavík Energy pipes hot water from the geothermal fields of Nesjavellir and Hellisheiði to heat nearly every house in the city.

Harpa, the concert hall on the harbor, has a facade of glass blocks designed with the artist Ólafur Elíasson and is the home stage of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. The Sun Voyager, a steel sculpture by Jón Gunnar Árnason, looks like the frame of a Viking ship and faces the sea along the shore path. The National Museum of Iceland tells the story of the country from the settlement to the present, with a carved church door from Valþjófsstaður among its treasures.