History
As recounted in the ancient Islendingabok and Landnamabok sagas, Reykjavik's origins date back to the country's first settler, Ingolfur Arnarson , who arrived in 874 AD, brought here by his high seat pillars - emblems of tribal chieftainship, tossed overboard from his boat - and settling, in pagan tradition, wherever they washed up. He named the place "smoky bay" ( reykja meaning "of smoke", vik meaning "bay") mistakenly thinking that the distant plumes of steam issuing from boiling spring water were smoke caused by fire. It was a poor place to settle, however, as the soil was too infertile to support successful farming, and Reykjavik remained barely inhabited until an early seventeenth-century sea-fishing boom brought Danish traders here, after which a small shanty town to house their Icelandic labour force sprang into existence. Later, in the middle of the eighteenth century, Skuli Magnusson , the official in charge of Reykjavik's administrative affairs ( landfogeti ), a man today regarded as the city's founder, used Reykjavik as a base to establish Icelandic-controlled industries, opening several mills and tanneries, and importing foreign craftspeople to pass on their skills. A municipal charter was granted in 1786, when the population totalled a mere 167 - setting the course for Reykjavik's acceptance as Iceland's capital. At the turn of the eighteenth century, the city replaced Skalholt as the national seat of religion and gained the Lutheran Cathedral, Domkirkjan; eighty years later, with the opening of the new Alping building, it became the base of the national parliament. Since independence in 1944, expansion has been almost continuous. As a fishing harbour, a port for the produce of the fertile farms of the southwest and a centre for a variety of small industries, Reykjavik provides employment for over half the country's population. Over the past decade, there's been a substantial boom, too, in tourism, with travel agents on every corner and large expanses of land being consumed by building sites throwing up hotels to service the bringers of the new wealth. The city has also pioneered the use of geothermal energy to provide low-cost heating - which is why you have to wait for the cold water instead of the hot when taking a shower, and why tap water always has a whiff of sulphur.
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