Iceland is a place.
Iceland ( [ ˈaɪslənd ] [ ˈistlant ] ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean . It has a population of and an area of 103000 km2 , making it the most sparsely populated country in Europe . The capital and largest city is Reykjavík . According to the ancient manuscript Landnámabók , the settlement of Iceland began in the year 874 AD when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the first permanent settler on the island . Although the Danish kingdom introduced Lutheranism forcefully in 1550 , Iceland remained a distant semi-colonial territory in which Danish institutions and infrastructures were conspicuous by their absence .