Why Is Thingvellir Important? Iceland's Assembly From 930 to 1798

You arrive at the viewpoint, look down into a torn valley with a small white church on the floor, and wonder what you are looking at. The answer is more than eight centuries of law, argument and national memory, set in a rift that is still pulling apart. Once you know it, the walk down the gorge becomes a walk through that story. The guided tours of Thingvellir set out every way to see it with someone who can tell it.

What happened at Thingvellir?

The name means "Assembly Plains". For two weeks each summer, people came here from all over the country to make law, settle disputes and trade news. The Alþing met in the open air, in this valley, from around 930 until 1798. Stand at the viewpoint and you can see most of the ground it used.

The period from 930 to 1262 is called the Commonwealth. Iceland had no king then, and the assembly was the closest thing the country had to a government. That is why a field of lava 40 km from Reykjavík matters so much to Icelanders.

Who came to the assembly?

Bishop Gissur Ísleifsson counted about 4,000 farmers at the end of the 11th century. One in nine went with his chieftain, so up to 500 were required to attend. The farthest east took 17 days to arrive.

They lived for those two weeks in temporary booths of turf and stone. The Booth Trail, Búðaslóð, passes several of the ruins today. Only two visible ruins date from the Commonwealth, and one of them is Njálsbúð. When you walk the trail, you are walking through the campsite of a nation.

What was the Law Rock for?

Lögberg, the Law Rock, was the hub of the assembly. Anyone attending could speak there. The assembly opened and closed there, and rulings and the calendar were announced from it.

The Lawspeaker stood at the centre of it. Chosen by the Law Council for a three-year term, he recited the whole law over three summers and the procedural rules every summer. He was the Commonwealth's only paid official. Nobody knows exactly where the rock was. One candidate is the ledge at the top of the slope called Hallurinn, where the flagpole stands now; the other is inside Almannagjá, against the higher wall. You can stand at both on the same walk.

How did the Law Council and the courts work?

The Lögrétta, or Law Council, sat on a central platform: 48 chieftains, each with two advisers, making 146 or 147 men once the bishops joined. It met east of the Öxará river until the river shifted, and moved west of it in 1594.

Quarter Courts were set up around 960, and a Fifth Court early in the 11th century. The laws were first written down in the winter of 1117–1118, at Hafliði Másson's farm. The Commonwealth laws are known as Grágás, and a new code, Jónsbók, was approved in 1281.

What happened here in the year 1000?

By the summer of 1000 the assembly had split into pagans and Christians, each with its own Lawspeaker. Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði, the pagan Lawspeaker, withdrew for a night and a day. Then he declared at the Law Rock that Icelanders would be Christian, while pagans could keep practising in private.

A church has stood in the valley since about 1017, built from timber and a bell sent by King Olaf of Norway. The white church you see from the viewpoint, Þingvallakirkja, was built in 1859, with its bell tower added in 1907. If you visit it in summer, you stand on ground that has held a church for about a thousand years.

Kings, the Great Judgment and Drekkingarhylur

In 1262, with the Gamli sáttmáli, Iceland accepted the Norwegian king, and the Law Rock's role ended. In 1662 a gathering here acknowledged the absolute rule of the Danish king. The assembly kept meeting, but it was no longer the country's own.

The Great Judgment of 1564, Stóridómur, made corporal punishment far more frequent. Drekkingarhylur, the Drowning Pool, is where women found guilty under it were drowned. Place names such as Gallows Cliffs remain in the valley today.

How did Thingvellir lead to independence?

The last Alþing at Thingvellir met in 1798. The restored Alþing first met in Reykjavík on 1 July 1845, as an advisory body. Meetings at the old site kept the idea alive: the first Þingvellir meeting, in 1848, had 19 delegates, and such meetings ran until 1907.

King Christian IX handed Iceland its first constitution here in 1874. At Lögberg, the declaration of independence was signed in 1944. When you reach the flagpole on your walk, you are at one of the two places proposed for that rock. The nation came back for festivals in 1974 for 1,100 years of settlement, in 1994 for 50 years of the republic, and in 2000 for the millennium of Christianity.

Thingvellir's history in dates

The dates below are the ones worth knowing before you go, in the order they happened.

Why is the landscape part of the story?

The assembly met in a rift valley on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Thingvellir sits in a graben seven kilometres wide, between the Almannagjá and Heiðargjá faults, floored by lava about 10,000 years old. The high western wall gave the assembly its backdrop, and the Öxará river, which the Sturlunga saga says was diverted into the gorge, gave it fresh water. As you walk down the gorge, you are walking along that western wall.

The ground is still moving. Away from the plate boundaries the movement is about two centimetres a year, and in the rift the stress releases in bursts; the most recent swept over the valley in the spring of 1789. You can read more on the nature page, and the full timeline is on the history page.

How to see the history on the ground

Most of what matters sits along one walk, and you can do the core of it in half an hour. Start at the Hakið visitor centre by car park P1, then take the path down into the gorge.

• The viewpoint at Hakið, for the whole valley and the lake, Þingvallavatn, beyond it.
• The walk down Almannagjá, between the fault walls.
• The flagpole on the ledge where the Law Rock may have stood.
• Öxarárfoss, the waterfall on the river the assembly relied on.
• Peningagjá, the "Money Fault", and the church beyond it, open in summer when a ranger is present.

The Heart of Iceland exhibition at Hakið tells the story in about 40 minutes: 1,200 ISK for adults and free if you are 17 or under. Opening hours and parking are on visiting the park, and the post on walking Almannagjá covers the route step by step. The map shows where each car park sits.

Time is the thing to plan for. A Golden Circle coach gives you 30 to 45 minutes in the park, enough for the gorge and the flagpole. A private half-day gives you two hours, and that is what lets you reach the church, the booths and the pool as well.

Tours that leave time for the assembly site

Thingvellir National Park Tour ( Þingvellir )

A private car from Harpa for up to three, and two hours inside the park at your own pace.

From $713 per group, up to 3

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Golden Circle & Kerið Small-Group Day Tour from Reykjavik

A small-group minibus from Reykjavík hotels or Skarfabakki harbour, 40 minutes at Thingvellir, and Kerið.

From $135 per person

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3 Day Summer South Coast, Golden Circle and Jökulsarlon glacier lagoon

Three days along the south coast: an hour at Thingvellir, two nights, a glacier hike and an ice cave.

From $948 per person

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