Iceland's Viking Settlement: 1,100 Years of Continuous Settlement Since 874 AD
Iceland's current history dates back to 874 AD, when Ingólfr Arnarson, a Norse farmer and chieftain fleeing political unrest in Norway, established the first permanent settlement to create a sustainable society. The Íslendingabók (The Book of the Icelanders), written around 1130, states that the Norse colonisation period lasted from 870-930 AD, with the entire island being colonised in about 60 years. Archaeological evidence corroborates this: a layer of volcanic ash (tephra) identified in Greenlandic ice cores and dated to around 871 AD matches with the oldest human remains recovered throughout Iceland, supporting historical descriptions recorded centuries later.
Iceland's Viking settlement stands out as the only successful permanent Norse settlement in a new location during the Viking Age, unlike other brief raiding outposts. During the settlement period, about 4,300 to 24,000 individuals migrated to Iceland, mostly from southwestern Norway due to overpopulation and political instability under King Harald Fairhair (890-910). Many settlers had colonised the British Isles and Ireland before, so they brought knowledge of founding new communities. Ingólfr's wife, Hallveig Fróðadóttir, is mentioned as Iceland's first housewife, demonstrating women's participation in building homesteads, which differs from raiding-focused Viking expeditions abroad.
The settlement swiftly transitioned from subsistence farming and fishing to organised rule. By 930 AD, immigrants formed the Althing (Alþingi) at Þingvellir, the world's oldest surviving parliament. This demonstrated Iceland's devotion to lawful communal organisation above feudal hierarchy. This parliament settled disagreements quietly, represented changing cultural norms, and operated for more than a millennium. Icelandic Vikings prioritised community life and cultural preservation over conquest, documenting oral traditions in sagas and preserving language and poetry with exceptional accuracy to Old Norse—a legacy that allows current Icelanders to read mediaeval literature directly.
