As Iceland becomes more prominent on the world stage, people want to find out more about the remote north Atlantic island and its inhabitants.
Particularly during the 2006 financial crisis, it has often been said that there is the lack of information about Iceland in English. The Icelandic banks have done much to rectify this with regular press releases and media interviews. The situation has also been helped by the advent of IceNews and the increase in the number of articles written in English on Wikipedia.
Currently Wikipedia is one of the most comprehensive sources of information on Icelanders and Iceland on the Internet.
The online encyclopaedia is also available in Icelandic at www.is.wikipedia.org. The site was started in December 2003 and contains over 18,000 articles in Icelandic.
With only 300,000 inhabitants, Iceland has punched well above its weight in the last two decades, particularly in the fields of finance and music.
Some prominent Icelanders include:
Halldor Laxness – Iceland’s most prestigious novelist who won the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Björk – world-famous musician and actress who creates a stir wherever she goes.
Geir Haarde – the current Prime Minister of Iceland and head of the Independence party.
Björgolfur Thor Björgolfsson – businessman, entrepreneur and Iceland‘s first billionaire.
Thorsteinn M Jonsson, Chairman of Glitnir, a leading Nordic bank operating in 10 countries around the world, and Vice Chairman of the FL Group, an international investment company.
The main entry on Iceland can be found at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland