Iceland summit
Highlands of Iceland
You can see 120 km from here, looking south-west.
Calculating the panorama…
Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.
The view
Up to 120 km away.
Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.
Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).
- 120 kmFarthest ridgelooking south-west
- 98%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 7Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 768 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 7 peaks you can name from here
From west to east as you turn around: height, distance and direction. Each one links to its guide on Peakyas, our mountain atlas.
From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.
The sun
The best sunsets are in June and from November to January.
When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.
- Jansouth-west14 min before the sea-level sunset18%
- Febsouth-west12 min before the sea-level sunset17%
- Marwest20 min before the sea-level sunset16%
- Aprwest18 min before the sea-level sunset17%
- Maynorth-west14 min before the sea-level sunset17%
- Jun——sets on an open horizon20%
- Julnorth-westsets on an open horizon15%
- Augnorth-west12 min before the sea-level sunset18%
- Sepwest20 min before the sea-level sunset17%
- Octwest14 min before the sea-level sunset17%
- Novsouth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset19%
- Decsouth20 min before the sea-level sunset20%
- Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
- Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
- %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).
The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.
The place
Highlands of Iceland.
Area in Iceland
Highlands of Iceland is a summit in Iceland, 768 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 120 km away, looking south-west.
7 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Hekla (1,491 m), 121 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 98% of the circle.
The skies are clearest in June and from November to January.
Get there and stay
- Akureyri International Airport (AEY)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 91 km in a straight lineCar hire at AEY airport (Akureyri)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above
The viewpoint and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.
Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 1named peaks within 5 kmFjórðungsalda
- other viewpoints within 5 km
- cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
- marked trails within 3 km
- shelters and huts within 5 km
- car parks within 3 km
- visitor centres within 5 km
- restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- campsites within 10 km
- places to stay within 10 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
What you see from Highlands of Iceland, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Peakyas3 mountains within 25 kmFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.
Photographs
The view, as people saw it.
Other viewpoints nearby.
Highlands of Iceland
Iceland
- 63Viewyas Score
- 120 kmFarthest ridge
- 7Peaks in view
- 768 mAltitude
Bárðarbunga
Iceland · 35 km
- 63Viewyas Score
- 95 kmFarthest ridge
- 10Peaks in view
- 1,966 mAltitude
Hvannadalshnúkur
Iceland · 115 km
- 84Viewyas Score
- 207 kmFarthest ridge
- 41Peaks in view
- 2,076 mAltitude
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q291004) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sun | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms |
| Peaks in view | Peakyas (Wikidata, CC0) |
| Panorama and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas, Islandyas, Darkskyas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
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