ICELAND THE GLACIAL COUNTRY

Glaciers cover more than a tenth of Iceland. The largest—and by far the largest, is Vatnajökull in the southeast corner of the country. It is the largest glacier in the world outside the arctic regions, covering 8000 km2. Next in line is Langjökull 950 km2, just a few square kilometers larger than Hofsjökull. Number four is Mýrdalsjökull, which is almost 600 km2 in size. Then comes Drangajökull in the west, at Strandir, but it covers 160 km2 of land. Other glaciers are much smaller. The smallest of the large glaciers and number thirteen in the series is Snæfellsjökull, which is about 3 square kilometers in size. Since 1995, for almost 30 years, Vatnajökull has shrunk by almost one and a half the size of Snæfellsjökull per year.