Reykjavík

The world’s northernmost capital of a sovereign state, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay, holding about 140,000 people with the Capital Region around it taking in roughly 64 per cent of everyone in Iceland. According to Landnámabók the settlement of the country began here when Ingólfur Arnarson arrived from Norway in 874, and legend has him choosing the spot by Norse custom: casting his high seat pillars overboard and settling where the gods brought them ashore. For more than 900 years afterwards nothing urban grew; the city was formally founded as a trading town only in 1786. The name means smoke bay, for the steam off the hot springs.