Where to Stay in Reykjavík, Höfuðborgarsvæði

What is Reykjavík known for?

Reykjavík is the capital of Iceland and the seat of its government, the northernmost capital of any sovereign state, and the harbour town from which the rest of the island is supplied, governed and reached. Its skyline has one anchor. Hallgrímskirkja rises in stepped concrete above the centre, and below it the streets gather the museums, galleries and cafes that make Reykjavík the cultural core of the country.

What are the main landmarks in Reykjavík?

One tower marks the city. Hallgrímskirkja stands over the centre in stepped grey concrete, the tallest thing for miles and the point every street in Reykjavík seems to climb toward. The museums fill in the rest. Þjóðminjasafn Íslands holds the national collection, Listasafn Íslands hangs the country's art beside the Tjörnin pond, Listasafn Reykjavíkur runs the city's own galleries, and Landnámssýningin sits over the dug-out remains of a settlement-age longhouse downtown.

What is the history of Reykjavík?

Settlement began here. The dug-out longhouse under Landnámssýningin marks one of the oldest homesteads in Iceland, and for centuries the bay shore that became Reykjavík held little more than farms while power sat with the assembly and the bishops elsewhere on the island. Reykjavík grew up around commerce.

Reykjavík was chartered in the 18th century, granted its standing as a merchant place in 1786, and a cluster of wool and fishing workshops on the Faxaflói shore slowly drew the trade of the wider country toward the one sheltered harbour in the south-west. The capital followed the harbour. As government, schools and the National Museum gathered along the bay, Reykjavík pulled in people from the farms and the fjords until it held the bulk of Iceland's people, and the small trading post on Faxaflói grew into the seat of a sovereign state and the northernmost capital on earth.

Where is Reykjavík?

The bay shapes the city. Reykjavík spreads along the southern shore of Faxaflói in south-western Iceland, a low sprawl of peninsulas and inlets where the land runs flat to the water and a small pond, the Tjörnin, sits at the heart of the old centre. The water is never out of reach.

Headlands and islands break the bay to the north, the open Atlantic lies beyond, and the city's reach folds out into the wider Höfuðborgarsvæði around it.

What is the climate of Reykjavík?

The sea keeps it mild. Open to Faxaflói and the North Atlantic, Reykjavík runs cool and damp rather than bitterly cold, with windy grey winters that rarely freeze hard, short cloudy summers, and rain or sleet spread thin across the whole year. The light swings hard.

As the northernmost capital, the city moves between near-endless summer daylight and dark winters when the sun barely clears the bay.

How do you get to Reykjavík?

Most arrive by air. Iceland's international gateway sits on the Reykjanes peninsula a short drive south-west of Reykjavík, and a steady run of buses links the runway to the centre across the lava fields along the Faxaflói shore. The ring road starts here too.

The route that circles Iceland threads out of the capital and across the wider Höfuðborgarsvæði, and a smaller city airport handles the domestic flights that reach the fjords and the north.