Counties of Iceland

Traditional counties and towns of Iceland
Iceland
This article is part of a series on the
politics and government of
Iceland
Constitution

Iceland was historically divided into 23 counties, sýslur and 23 independent towns, kaupstaðir. Iceland is now split up between 24 sýslumenn (magistrates) that are the highest authority over the local police (except in Reykjavík where there is a special office of police commissioner) and carry out administrative functions such as declaring bankruptcy and marrying people outside of the church. The jurisdictions of these magistrates often follow the lines of the historical counties but not always. When speaking of these new "administrative" counties the custom is to associate them with the county seats rather than using the names of the traditional counties, even when they cover the same area.

Composition

Independent towns (kaupstaðir) were first created in the 18th century as urbanisation began in Iceland, this practice continued into the 1980s the last town that was declared an independent town was Ólafsvík in 1983. Since then, the laws regarding municipalities have been changed in such a way that there is no longer any distinction made between urban or rural municipalities.

Historical counties

The historical counties were:

Independent towns

The 23 independent towns were:

See also

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 4/12/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.