Vatnajökull National Park

Vatnajökull National Park covers more than 1.4 million hectares, with the Vatnajökull ice cap, about 780,000 hectares, at its centre. It holds ten central volcanoes, eight of them beneath the ice. When one erupts under the glacier, its margin can burst in a sudden flood, a jökulhlaup, and these floods have built wide sandur plains north and south of the ice cap.

Skaftafell, in the south, became a major farm soon after Iceland was settled, and district assemblies met on its land. The eruption of Öræfajökull in 1362 destroyed the community, and the district became known as Öræfi, the wasteland. The Laki fissure eruption, from 8 June 1783 to 7 February 1784, poured out about 14 cubic kilometres of lava; some 80 per cent of Iceland's sheep died, and famine killed about a fifth of the population. On 20 July 1783, as the pastor Jón Steingrímsson and his parishioners were at worship, a branch of the lava halted near the church farm at Kirkjubæjarklaustur.

Skaftafell National Park was founded on 15 September 1967, and traditional farming there ended in 1988. On 7 June 2008 it was joined with Jökulsárgljúfur in the north to form Vatnajökull National Park, which later took in the Laki craters and Jökulsárlón. The park was inscribed on 5 July 2019.