Hrísey
Encyclopedia
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, situated approximately 35 kilometres north of Akureyri
Akureyri
Akureyri is a town in northern Iceland. It is Iceland's second largest urban area and fourth largest municipality ....
, in Eyjafjörður
Eyjafjörður
Eyjafjörður is the longest fjord in central northern Iceland. It is located in the second most populous region of Iceland.-Physical geography:...
, at 66°00′N 18°23′W.
Since 2004, the island has been a part of the municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
of Akureyri, having previously been a municipality in its own right.
Hrísey itself has a total land area of 7.67 km², and is about 7.5 km long by 2.5 km wide at its widest point in the south. It is the second-largest island off the coast of Iceland (after Heimaey
Heimaey
Heimaey , literally Home Island, is an Icelandic island. At a size of 13.4 km² , it is the largest island in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago, and the largest and most populated Icelandic island outside the main island of Iceland. Heimaey lies approximately 4 nautical miles off the south coast...
in the Vestmannaeyjar). It has a population of approximately 180 people, and has been continuously inhabited since the time of settlement in Iceland. The island is connected to the mainland by a ferry service to Árskógssandi, a fifteen-minute sailing.
Historically, the island was used as a base for the fishing industry, first by Norwegians
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
and Swedes
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, and then by Icelanders, and by the late nineteenth century it housed a herring salting factory. Overfishing in Icelandic waters led to a steep decline in the fishing industry in the 1960s, and the last fish freezing plant on Hrísey, owned by the Eyjafjörður Co-operative Society, closed in 1999.
More recently, Hrísey has developed a reputation as a birdwatching destination. There are no natural predators on the island, making it an ideal bird sanctuary. The northern part of Hrísey, Ystabæjarland, is a privately owned nature reserve, and the killing of birds is forbidden on the rest of the island. Among the forty species of bird on the island are the ptarmigan, arctic tern
Arctic Tern
The Arctic Tern is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. This bird has a circumpolar breeding distribution covering the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America...
, and eider duck.