Iceland’s name comes from the Old Norse word Ísland which means “land of ice”. Old stories claim the name was chosen to persuade outsiders from settling in, but the country’s first discoverer Flóki Vilgerðarson is given credit for the name as he noticed ice around it’s waters.

The honor of the first elected female president for any country in the world belongs to Iceland’s Vigdís Finnbogadóttir.

Iceland is a very small country near the Nordic region. It however is one of the few countries with no local defense of any kind. No tax dollars goes to fund the Icelandic army, because there is none. They have a police sure, but knowing if someone had the dumb idea to attack a tiny…

In Iceland, there are usually no traditional family names like the American equivalents such as “Smith” or “Miller”. Instead a person’s last name is usually determined by a person’s father and sometimes the mother. For example famous Icelandic singer Björk is the daughter of a man named Guðmundur, so her last name is Guðmundsdóttir meaning…

When Iceland was first discovered by the Vikings, it was originally named in what would be called Snowland in modern English. A similar inspiration by another Viking community would later give it the name Iceland.