River · Iceland
Þjórsá
The Þjórsá is the longest river in Iceland and carries milky meltwater from a great glacier. It crosses empty highlands and black lava fields before reaching the Atlantic Ocean on the south coast.
Picture credit: TommyBee (Public domain) · Jakub Hałun (CC BY-SA 4.0) · fingalo (CC BY-SA 2.0 de) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Þjórsá?
The river starts here: Hofsjökull glacier in the Icelandic highlands.
It ends in the Atlantic Ocean on the south coast.
Countries on the river: Iceland.
The story behind it
The Þjórsá starts at the Hofsjökull glacier and runs south across highlands where almost nobody lives. Its water looks pale grey because it carries fine rock powder ground up by the ice, and it stays icy cold all year. Along the way it drops over waterfalls, the most famous being Háifoss, which plunges into a narrow green gorge. Pink-footed geese nest in the wide gravel plains nearby, and the river is one of the best salmon waters in the country. Several power stations use the Þjórsá to make electricity, and many Icelanders argue about whether more should be built or whether the wild valleys should be left alone. When a volcano erupts under a glacier, the river can suddenly swell with a dangerous flood of meltwater.
Questions children ask
How long is the Þjórsá?
The Þjórsá is about 230 kilometres long. That is short compared with big continental rivers, but longer than any other river in Iceland.
Which country does the Þjórsá flow through?
The Þjórsá lies entirely in Iceland. It runs from the middle of the island down to the southern coastal lowlands.
Where does the Þjórsá flow into?
The Þjórsá flows into the Atlantic Ocean on the south coast of Iceland. Its mouth is a wide sandy area where the current keeps shifting.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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