Thingvellir National Park
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
How it came to be
According to the Book of Settlements, the settlement of Iceland began in 874. As the population grew, the chieftains wanted a general assembly, partly to limit the power of the leading family of the south-west. Land forfeited by a man found guilty of murder was set aside for the purpose, and in the summer of 930 the first Althing met at Thingvellir, the assembly fields.
The Althing met every summer for about two weeks to make laws and settle disputes. The lawspeaker recited the law from the Law Rock, and those attending lodged in booths with turf and stone walls roofed with homespun cloth, of which about 50 remains survive. In the year traditionally given as 1000, the Althing adopted Christianity as the country's religion. The assembly met here for the last time in 1798.
In the 19th century Thingvellir became a nationalist symbol. A law of 1928 made it Iceland's first national park, to protect the assembly site, and the park was founded in 1930, the millennium of the Althing. The valley lies in the rift between the North American and Eurasian plates, and its floor has sunk 3 to 4 m since the Althing was founded. It was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 2004.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).