Þingvallavatn
Sign in to saveAlso known as Thingvallavatn, Lake Thingvalla
Þingvallavatn (, ), anglicised as Thingvallavatn, is a rift valley lake in southwestern Iceland. With a surface of it is the largest natural lake in Iceland. Its greatest depth is . At the northern shore of the lake, at Þingvellir (after which the lake is named), the Alþingi, the national parliament, was founded in the year 930, and held its sessions there until 1799 and still as of today the name Alþingi Íslendinga is carried by the parliament of Iceland.
Key facts
- Lake.name
- Þingvallavatn
- Lake.image
- Thingvallavatn.jpg
- Lake.caption
- Fissures at the lake
- Lake.location
- Þingvellir National Park
- Lake.outflow
- Sog
- Lake.basin_countries
- Iceland
- Lake.residence_time
- 11 months
- Lake.islands
- Sandey
- Lake.pushpin_map
- Iceland
- Lake.pushpin_map_alt
- Location of Þingvallavatn in Iceland.
via Wikipedia infobox
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
4 sectionsContents
- See also
- Notes and references
- References
- External links
Þingvallavatn (, ), anglicised as Thingvallavatn, is a rift valley lake in southwestern Iceland. With a surface of it is the largest natural lake in Iceland. Its greatest depth is . At the northern shore of the lake, at Þingvellir (after which the lake is named), the Alþingi, the national parliament, was founded in the year 930, and held its sessions there until 1799 and still as of today the name Alþingi Íslendinga is carried by the parliament of Iceland.
The lake lies partially within Þingvellir National Park. The volcanic origin of the islands in the lake is clearly visible. The cracks and faults around it, of which the Almannagjá ravine is the largest, is where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet. Silfra fissure is a popular scuba and snorkeling site. The only outflow from lake Þingvallavatn is the river Sog.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Þingvallavatn” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
On the map
3 mapped locations