Jökulsárlón

Breiðamerkurjökull grew during the Little Ice Age and reached its furthest extent around 1890. As temperatures rose in the twentieth century the glacier tongue retreated quickly, and a lagoon began to form in front of it in the mid-1930s. It has kept growing as the ice pulls back: from roughly 8 square kilometres in 1975 to about 25 square kilometres today, and it has been reported as the deepest lake in Iceland.

In 2017 the Icelandic state bought the farm Fell, which includes the lagoon, and the land was added to Vatnajökull National Park later that year. The park as a whole was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019. The lagoon's otherworldly look has also drawn film crews, and it has appeared in several international productions, including James Bond films.

Jökulsárlón sits in a thinly populated stretch of the south-east coast between the Skaftafell area and the town of Höfn. Farming communities here have long lived with advancing and retreating glaciers and shifting glacial rivers, and the lagoon has become a living classroom on glacier change: rangers, researchers and visitors watch the same ice front retreat year after year. Harbour seals and seabirds share the lagoon mouth with the fishing grounds that feed them.