One-lane bridges in Iceland
Everyone tells you the rule. Nobody tells you where they are — so here is the count, route by route, and the one Ring Road leg that has more than half of them.
Iceland has 634 single-lane bridges mapped across the country, 30 of them on Route 1, the Ring Road. The rule is simple — whoever reaches the bridge first crosses first, and you never enter while another vehicle is on it. The part nobody mentions is where they are: 16 of the Ring Road's 30 are on the single leg between Höfn and Egilsstaðir in the East Fjords, while the whole northern half of the loop has almost none. Plan the eastern legs with that in mind, and slow down for every yellow Einbreið brú sign — it gives you only a few seconds at 90 km/h.
| Ring Road leg | Bridges | What that leg is |
|---|---|---|
| Reykjavík → Hvolsvöllur | 4 | The busiest leg in the country, and the one most people meet first |
| Hvolsvöllur → Kirkjubæjarklaustur | 2 | The South Coast run past Vík and the black-sand beaches |
| Kirkjubæjarklaustur → Höfn | 6 | Skeiðarársandur, Skaftafell and Jökulsárlón — the glacier corridor |
| Höfn → Egilsstaðir (East Fjords) | 16 | The fjord-by-fjord eastern leg, where the bridges cluster hardest |
| Egilsstaðir → Akureyri → Reykjavík (north) | 2 | The northern half of the loop — the leg with almost none |
That distribution is the useful fact. The Ring Road is not evenly sprinkled with single-lane bridges — they are concentrated in the south-east and east, where the road crosses glacial rivers and threads its way around the fjords. Leave Reykjavík along the south coast and the bridges build gradually: a handful before Hvolsvöllur, more through the glacier corridor, then the 16-bridge eastern stretch on about day three. Go the other way, north through Borgarnes and Akureyri first, and you will drive most of the loop meeting almost none — then meet the same eastern stretch in one concentrated run. Either way it is the eastern legs that deserve more time in the itinerary than their distance suggests.
| Road | Icelandic name | Bridges |
|---|---|---|
| Route 68 | Innstrandavegur | 13 |
| Route 590 | Klofningsvegur | 12 |
| Route 60 | Vestfjarðavegur | 12 |
| Route 85 | Norðausturvegur | 12 |
| Route 54 | Snæfellsnesvegur | 10 |
| Route 643 | Strandavegur | 9 |
| Route 63 | Bíldudalsvegur | 8 |
| Route 745 | Skagavegur | 8 |
| Route 635 | Snæfjallastrandarvegur | 7 |
| Route 26 | Sprengisandsleið | 6 |
| Route 917 | Hlíðarvegur | 6 |
| Route 919 | Sunnudalsvegur | 6 |
Beyond Route 1 the bridges cluster in exactly the places you would expect: the Westfjords and Strandir coast, the Snæfellsnes peninsula, and the north-east. These are single-carriageway roads following a shoreline, crossing a river at the head of every bay — which is also why the drive takes far longer than the map suggests. A further 129 single-lane bridges sit on unnumbered or minor roads that carry no route number at all.
Where these numbers come from
We counted them ourselves, from OpenStreetMap (ODbL 1.0), taking every bridge mapped as single-lane in Iceland — a database snapshot from 2026-07-25. Two honest caveats. First, this is a crowd-mapped count, not an official register: Vegagerðin's commonly quoted figures are around 715 nationally and 33 on Route 1, higher than our 634 and 30 because minor rural bridges are unevenly tagged by volunteers. Second, bridges are steadily being widened — Iceland has been replacing single-lane spans on Route 1 for years, so this number falls over time. We publish what the data says on the date shown rather than repeating a figure whose age nobody can check.
How to cross one without a stand-off
The yellow Einbreið brú sign appears roughly 100–200 metres before the bridge. At 90 km/h that is about five seconds, which is the entire reason these bridges catch people out — the sign is not a suggestion to start thinking, it is the point at which you should already be slowing.
Judge the other car early. If they are clearly closer to the bridge, ease off and stop at your end — most Icelandic single-lane bridges have a widened approach for exactly this. If it is genuinely too close to call, flash your headlights once or simply stop; Icelandic drivers read both instantly and it resolves in a second. Never accelerate to claim the bridge, and never start across while anything is still on it, including a cyclist or a pedestrian. On the longer bridges you cannot see the far end clearly, so assume you cannot.
Bridge decks freeze before the road does. Cold air circulates under a bridge, so the deck can be ice while the tarmac either side is merely wet — brake before the bridge, never on it. In a crosswind, a narrow deck with no shelter is the worst place for a camper or van, and there is no room to correct; check the wind before the eastern legs. Several bridges sit just beyond a blind crest or bend after a 90 km/h stretch, so slow to a speed at which stopping is easy and assume the other driver has not seen the sign. 112 is the emergency number everywhere in Iceland.
Frequently
asked questions
Who has right of way on a one-lane bridge in Iceland?
How many one-lane bridges are there in Iceland?
Which part of the Ring Road has the most single-lane bridges?
What does the “Einbreið brú” sign mean?
Are one-lane bridges dangerous?
Do one-lane bridges get worse in bad weather?
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