The Most Beautiful Waterfalls in Iceland
11 places · updated 6 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful waterfalls in Iceland are Seljalandsfoss, Goðafoss and Skógafoss. The list covers 11 waterfalls. Last updated 6 October 2026.
Iceland is made for waterfalls. The island is young and volcanic, built from layer upon layer of basalt lava, and heavy rain and snow keep its rivers full, many of them fed by ice caps such as Vatnajökull and Mýrdalsjökull. Where hard lava layers sit on softer ash or sediment, rivers cut steps and drop over them, and along the south coast streams fall from cliffs that once stood at the edge of the sea.
Seljalandsfoss falls from one of those old sea cliffs, and a path leads behind the curtain of water. Nearby Skógafoss drops about 60 metres as a broad, even sheet that throws up rainbows on sunny days. In the north, Goðafoss is linked by tradition to the lawspeaker Þorgeir, said to have thrown his pagan idols into it after Iceland adopted Christianity around the year 1000. Upriver on the glacial Jökulsá á Fjöllum, Dettifoss is a thundering grey torrent of meltwater.
Others show the island's rock up close. Svartifoss in Skaftafell hangs between dark basalt columns that resemble organ pipes, Hengifoss falls past bands of red clay between lava layers, and Aldeyjarfoss is framed by twisted columns. At Hraunfossar the water does not come over a lip at all: it seeps out of a lava field in hundreds of rivulets along the bank of the Hvítá.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seljalandsfoss | Waterfall | |
| 2 | Goðafoss | Waterfall | |
| 3 | Skógafoss | Waterfall | |
| 4 | Hraunfossar | Waterfall | |
| 5 | Gullfoss | Waterfall | |
| 6 | Dynjandi | Waterfall | |
| 7 | Dettifoss | Waterfall | |
| 8 | Svartifoss | Waterfall | |
| 9 | Hengifoss | Waterfall | |
| 10 | Aldeyjarfoss | Waterfall | |
| 11 | Háifoss | Waterfall |
01 Seljalandsfoss
Iceland63.615° N 19.988° W
Image by 12019 from Pixabay A short walk north along the cliff leads to Gljúfrabúi, "the canyon dweller", a smaller waterfall hidden almost completely inside a narrow gorge. Reaching it means stepping through a stream and squeezing into the rock opening, where the water falls into a mossy chamber open to the sky. Seen together, the two falls show two faces of the same landscape – one open to the plain, one tucked inside the cliff.
Did you know? The cliff was cut by waves at the end of the last Ice Age, when the sea stood higher; as the ice melted, the land rose and the sea withdrew.
02 Goðafoss
Iceland · 25.3 km from Akureyri65.683° N 17.550° W
Image by NUNZG from Pixabay The falls lie right beside the main ring road, and a walking loop of about three kilometres circles the area, giving views from above, from the side and close to the water. In 2020 Goðafoss was placed under formal protection. Its reputation rests less on size than on proportion, and on how close the path brings you to the edge.
Did you know? The gorge below the falls is cut into an ancient lava flow that covers the entire floor of the Bárðardalur valley.
03 Skógafoss
Iceland63.530° N 19.514° W
Image by falco from Pixabay A steep staircase of 527 steps climbs the old cliff face beside the falls to a viewing platform above, giving a rare vantage most waterfalls don't offer: looking down into the spray and across the flat farmland stretching to the sea. On sunny afternoons the mist thrown up by the 62-metre drop routinely produces a double rainbow — a big enough draw that Skógafoss has become one of the most photographed single frames on Iceland's south coast, right next to the older turf farmhouses of the open-air Skógar museum a short walk away.
Did you know? Skógafoss was formally protected as a natural monument in 1987.
04 Hraunfossar
Iceland64.703° N 20.980° W
Image by SandraLina from Pixabay A few minutes' walk upstream is Barnafoss, "the children's waterfall", where the whole river is forced through a narrow gorge and has carved arches into the rock. Local tradition tells that two children from a nearby farm fell to their deaths while crossing a natural stone bridge here, and that their grieving mother had the arch destroyed so that no one would suffer the same fate. The contrast between the two — Barnafoss all violence and noise, Hraunfossar all quiet seepage — is half the pleasure of the visit. The area has been a protected natural monument since 1987, and the Víðgelmir lava cave lies nearby in the same lava field.
Did you know? The Hallmundarhraun lava field formed in a large eruption near Langjökull in the early 10th century, around the time Iceland was being settled.
05 Gullfoss
Iceland64.326° N 20.121° W
Image by khj800 from Pixabay Today Gullfoss anchors the Golden Circle, Iceland's most-visited tourist route, named directly after the waterfall itself — a slightly circular piece of naming, given that "gull" means gold and the falls gave their name to the golden light that plays across the spray on a clear day, and then lent that same name back to the road built to reach them.
Did you know? In summer about 140 cubic metres of water pass over the falls every second, falling to about 80 in winter; the record flood reached around 2,000.
06 Dynjandi
Iceland · 39.1 km from Ísafjörður65.733° N 23.199° W
Image by jackmac34 from Pixabay The falls and their surroundings were protected as a natural monument in 1981. The landscape is almost empty: no village, just a car park at the head of the fjord and the road that climbs away over the Dynjandisheiði plateau. That road, built over the pass in 1959, was the first car-accessible link to Ísafjörður, and for years it was the reason travellers crossing the Westfjords stopped here at all. Summer brings the strongest flow, fed by snowmelt from the plateau, when the fall can carry several cubic metres of water every second.
Did you know? In summer the river carries about 2 to 8 cubic metres of water per second; in winter the flow drops to roughly half that.
07 Dettifoss
Iceland65.822° N 16.388° W
Markus Trienke · CC BY-SA 2.0 The falls lie within Vatnajökull National Park, and their otherworldly bleakness has been noticed: the opening scene of the 2012 film Prometheus, a vision of a primeval Earth, was filmed here, and the Icelandic composer Jón Leifs wrote an orchestral work named after the falls. The two banks offer different views. From the west, a paved road and path lead to viewpoints where the spray often drenches visitors; from the east, reached by a gravel road open in summer, the falls are seen more head-on and from a little further away.
Did you know? Rankings differ: Dettifoss is often called Europe's most powerful waterfall, though some sources place it second, after the Rhine Falls.
08 Svartifoss
Iceland64.028° N 16.975° W
Andreas Tille · CC BY-SA 4.0 Getting there is part of the experience: the walk in from the Skaftafell visitor centre in Vatnajökull National Park runs through birch scrub and volcanic heath for around 30–45 minutes before the columns come into view, dark against white falling water — a scale and palette that feels deliberately architectural even though nothing here was built.
Did you know? The basalt columns framing the falls stand roughly 15 to 20 metres tall, nearly as high as the waterfall itself.
09 Hengifoss
Iceland · 30.1 km from Egilsstaðir65.095° N 14.889° W
Image by benralexander from Pixabay The walk up the gorge is part of the experience. A path climbs from the valley floor for about 2.5 km each way, gaining some 300 metres in height, and halfway up it passes Litlanesfoss, a lower fall of 20 to 25 metres framed by columns of jointed basalt more than 10 metres tall, among the tallest such columns in Iceland. Further down the gorge lies a small sheltered grove of birch and rowan, and near its mouth stands an old stone sheep-fold last used in the autumn of 1901. From the upper part of the path the view opens over the wooded valley of Fljótsdalur and the lake below. Hengifoss is protected as a natural monument.
Did you know? Litlanesfoss, the lower fall on the same path, is also known as Stuðlabergsfoss, the Basalt Column Falls.
10 Aldeyjarfoss
Iceland65.366° N 17.337° W
Image by LalouBLue from Pixabay Skjálfandafljót rises at the northwestern edge of the Vatnajökull ice cap and runs north, roughly parallel to the Sprengisandur highland road, to the bay of Skjálfandi. Along the way it forms a chain of waterfalls: Aldeyjarfoss, Hrafnabjargafoss, Barnafoss and Ullarfoss, and in the lowlands, near the Ring Road, the broad horseshoe of Goðafoss. The cliffs around Aldeyjarfoss are a nesting place for gyrfalcons, merlins, pink-footed and greylag geese and goosanders.
Did you know? The same lava flow forms the ledge over which Goðafoss falls further downstream, and its far edge creates the river island of Þingey.
11 Háifoss
Iceland64.208° N 19.686° W
Image by gabmarjan from Pixabay The valley below has been shaped by Hekla and its neighbours. Repeated eruptions blanketed Þjórsárdalur in pumice, and the great eruption of 1104 buried the farm of Stöng, which was excavated in 1939. A reconstruction based on it, Þjóðveldisbærinn, showing how a farmhouse of the Saga Age was laid out, stands lower in the valley near the Búrfell power station. A walking route follows the Fossá from the ruins of Stöng up to the falls, a round trip of five to six hours, while a track reaches a viewpoint on the plateau above the gorge.
Did you know? Háifoss and its neighbour Granni stand less than 250 metres apart, with Granni carrying noticeably less water over its 101-metre drop.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful waterfalls in Iceland?
- On our list, Seljalandsfoss ranks first, followed by Goðafoss and Skógafoss.
- Why does Iceland have so many waterfalls?
- Iceland combines high rainfall, glacier meltwater and a young landscape of stacked basalt lava flows. Rivers cut down through the softer layers between the lavas and fall over the harder ones, and the land has had little time to wear these steps smooth.
- Which is the most powerful waterfall in Iceland?
- Dettifoss in the northeast, on the glacial river Jökulsá á Fjöllum, is considered Iceland's most powerful waterfall and is often called the most powerful in Europe.
- Why is Svartifoss surrounded by columns?
- The columns are basalt that cooled slowly from a thick lava flow, shrinking and cracking into regular six-sided pillars. The dark colour of the rock gave the fall its name, which means black waterfall.
- How many waterfalls are on this list in Iceland?
- The list covers 11 waterfalls.