Jökulsárlón

Interesting facts

When Iceland was first settled around 870, the glacier's edge lay roughly 20 km further inland than it does today.

During the Little Ice Age the glacier advanced again, and by about 1890 its front stood within about a kilometre of the coast.

The icebergs that calve from the glacier front can be around 30 metres high, and many sit grounded on the lake bed before they shrink enough to float out.

The dark bands striping many of the icebergs are layers of volcanic ash from ancient eruptions, trapped in the ice for centuries.

Whether an iceberg looks milky white or vivid blue depends on how much air is trapped inside the ice and how light passes through its crystals.

As the ice retreats, the land around the lagoon is rebounding by some 2 to 4 centimetres a year, partly offsetting the eroding shoreline.

If the glacier keeps retreating at its present pace, the lagoon is likely to become a deep fjord open to the sea.

The black-sand shore nicknamed Diamond Beach actually bears the name Eystri-Fellsfjara.

Commercial boat trips began in 1985, the year A View to a Kill premiered, and amphibious vehicles joined the fleet from 1988.

In 1991 Iceland put the lagoon on a 26-krónur postage stamp, and in 2017 the state bought the farm of Fell, on whose land it lies.

Why it is worth it

Jökulsárlón is a lake that did not exist a century ago. Breiðamerkurjökull, an outlet glacier of the vast Vatnajökull ice cap, began to retreat from its moraine at the end of the nineteenth century, and in the 1930s meltwater began to pool in the hollow it left behind. The lagoon has grown ever since: it quadrupled in size after the 1970s and now covers about 25 square kilometres, stretching some 8 km from the glacier front to the sea. It is also the deepest lake in Iceland, at more than 284 metres. The glacier is still retreating, by roughly 200 metres a year in recent times, so the lagoon you see is never quite the same twice.

Its beauty lies in the ice. Blocks break off the glacier face and float out into the lagoon in shades from chalk white to glassy, ink-stained blue. They drift, turn over and slowly melt, and only when they have shrunk enough can they slip through the short channel to the Atlantic. On the black sand on either side of the outlet, stranded fragments glitter on the shore, a stretch now known as Diamond Beach. Seals gather at the mouth of the lagoon, and Arctic terns, skuas and other seabirds hunt the fish and krill that the tides bring in.

The lagoon's otherworldly look has made it a film set. It appeared in the James Bond films A View to a Kill and Die Another Day, in Batman Begins and in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Boat trips among the icebergs began in 1985 and now carry tens of thousands of people each year, but even from the shore, walking the moraine ridges above the water, the scale is overwhelming, with the glacier tongue itself visible at the far end under the white mass of the ice cap.

Route 1, Iceland's ring road, crosses the outlet on a single bridge, protected by a coffer dam against the erosion caused by the lagoon's growth. Since 2017 Jökulsárlón has been part of Vatnajökull National Park, which was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.

Getting there

Jökulsárlón lies directly on Route 1 on Iceland's south-east coast, about 75 km west of the town of Höfn. The nearest airport is Hornafjörður Airport (HFN) near Höfn, about 55 km away, with domestic flights; international arrivals come through Keflavík, far to the west. Strætó bus route 51 runs from Reykjavík (Mjódd) along the south coast and stops at the lagoon before reaching Höfn, with more frequent departures in summer.

From the encyclopaedia

Jökulsárlón is a large glacial lake in southern part of Vatnajökull National Park, Iceland. Situated at the head of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier, it developed into a lake after the glacier started receding in the late 19th century. The lake has grown since then at varying rates because of melting of the glaciers. The glacial front is now about 8 km (5.0 mi) away from the ocean's edge and the lake covers an area of about 25 km² (9.7 mi²). In 2009 it was reported to be the deepest lake in Iceland, at over 284 m (932 ft), as glacial retreat extended its boundaries. The size of the lake has increased fourfold since the 1970s.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Jökulsárlón

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia