Iceland’s Population: 394,324, and Almost No Cities

Short answer

Iceland’s population is 394,324 as of 1 January 2026 — Statistics Iceland’s own figure, not a rounded one. Reykjavík holds 138,753 of them. Only 8 settlements in the entire country reach 10,000 people.

Where the 394,324 actually are

Every figure below is Statistics Iceland’s, read from their own table this morning and printed unchanged. These are urban nuclei — localities of 200 residents or more — largest first.

#	Settlement	Population	Share of Iceland
1	Reykjavik	138,753	35.2%
2	Kopavogur	40,228	10.2%
3	Hafnarfjordur	32,398	8.2%
4	Keflavik and Njardvik	22,572	5.7%
5	Akureyri	20,067	5.1%
6	Gardabaer	17,755	4.5%
7	Mosfellsbaer	13,417	3.4%
8	Selfoss	11,000	2.8%
9	Akranes	8,429	2.1%
10	Seltjarnarnes	4,609	1.2%
11	Vestmannaeyjar	4,518	1.1%
12	Hveragerdi	3,342	0.8%
13	Alftanes	2,916	0.7%
14	Isafjordur	2,807	0.7%
15	Egilsstadir	2,719	0.7%
16	Saudarkrokur	2,672	0.7%
17	Husavik	2,403	0.6%
18	Thorlakshofn	2,316	0.6%
19	Borgarnes	2,250	0.6%
20	Sandgerdi	2,188	0.6%
21	Gardur	2,006	0.5%
22	Vogar	1,818	0.5%
23	Hofn in Hornafjordur	1,813	0.5%
24	Neskaupstadur	1,478	0.4%
25	Reydarfjordur	1,470	0.4%

This list does not add up to 394,324, on purpose. Statistics Iceland only counts a locality once it reaches 200 residents. Everyone living outside one — on farms, in hamlets, along the fjords — falls into the “Rural areas in …” rows instead, which come to 17,725 people across 8 regions and are not in the table above. The share column is each settlement against the national total, so it is a real share of the country rather than of the list.

Why “cities in Iceland” is the wrong question

It is asked several thousand times a month and answered with a list of five or six “cities”. The numbers say something else. Iceland has one settlement above 100,000 people and 8 above 10,000. Everything else is a town, a village, or a harbour with a school.

The places usually listed second and third — Kopavogur and Hafnarfjordur — are not separate cities at all. They are contiguous municipalities of the capital area, and you cross between them on a city bus without noticing. Counting them separately is how the “Iceland has six cities” claim gets made.

The honest framing is that Iceland has one city, one proper regional town in Akureyri, and then a coastline of small places. That is not a criticism — it is the single most useful thing to understand before you plan a drive, because it explains why the Ring Road can run for an hour past nothing and why the supermarkets thin out the moment you leave the south-west.

The towns we have pages for

We are building these one at a time, by hand. Populations are Statistics Iceland’s, live.

Reykjavik — 138,753 people. The capital, and a third of the country.
Akureyri — 20,067 people. The largest place outside the south-west.
Husavik — 2,403 people. Whale watching, on Skjálfandi bay.
Vik i Myrdal. The south coast’s only real stop.

More are coming. If a town you want is missing, it is missing because nobody has written it properly yet, not because we generated a stub for it.

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Iceland’s population — questions people actually ask

What is the population of Iceland?

394,324 on 1 January 2026, according to Statistics Iceland. That is the whole country — fewer people than Coventry, Bakersfield or Wollongong, spread across an island roughly the size of Kentucky or Hungary. The figure on this page is read live from the national statistics agency rather than copied from another article, so it is theirs and it is unrounded.

What is the capital of Iceland?

Reykjavík, with 138,753 residents — about 35% of the entire national population in one city. Add the contiguous municipalities that most visitors never notice they have crossed into — Kópavogur, Hafnarfjörður, Garðabær, Mosfellsbær, Seltjarnarnes — and the capital region holds well over half the country.

How many cities does Iceland have?

By any ordinary definition, one. Reykjavík is the only settlement above 100,000 people. The places usually listed as Iceland's second and third cities, Kópavogur and Hafnarfjörður, are contiguous suburbs of Reykjavík rather than separate cities — you cross between them without noticing. Outside the capital region the largest place is Akureyri at 20,067, which is the size of a small market town.

What is the largest town outside Reykjavík?

Akureyri, in the north, with 20,067 people. It has a university, a hospital, an airport with domestic flights and a genuine urban centre, which is why Icelanders call it the capital of the north. It is still smaller than the crowd at a mid-sized football match.

Do the town populations add up to the national total?

No, and the reason matters if you are reading the table. Statistics Iceland counts an "urban nucleus" as a locality of 200 or more residents. Anyone living outside one of those — on farms, in hamlets, along fjords — is counted in the "Rural areas in …" rows instead, not in any town. So the settlement list is deliberately short of the national figure, and the difference is the people who do not live in a settlement at all.

Is Iceland the least densely populated country in Europe?

Yes. Roughly 394,000 people across about 103,000 km² works out near four people per square kilometre, and even that overstates how spread out they are — most of the interior is uninhabitable highland, so almost everyone lives on a coastal ring. That is why you can drive for an hour on the Ring Road and pass nothing, then hit the only shop for 100 km.

How fast is Iceland’s population growing?

Quickly by European standards, and mostly through immigration rather than births. Rather than put a growth figure here that would be out of date within months, the number at the top of this page is re-read from Statistics Iceland daily — so it is whatever they currently say, and you can follow the link to their table for the full time series back to 1998.

Population figures: Statistics Iceland (Hagstofa Íslands), table MAN030101 “Population by urban nuclei, sex and age, 1 January”, read live over their PxWeb API and printed unmodified. CC BY 4.0 · read 2026-10-16 15:42 UTC. Photograph: Reykjavík at twilight by Helgi Halldórsson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Area and density comparisons are ours, not Statistics Iceland’s.

Iceland’s population

Where the 394,324 actually are

Why “cities in Iceland” is the wrong question

The towns we have pages for

Cars & campers

Dacia Duster 4x4

VW Caravelle

Key Camper Wild Duo

Iceland’s population — questions people actually ask

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