Roads in Iceland

British War Office map showing major roads in Iceland, circa 1942

As late as 1900 Iceland had only a few miles of roading suitable for wheeled transport, mostly located in the southern regions of the island. A network of bridle paths permitted travel and transport elsewhere. In 1884 a Norwegian expert was brought in to organise the construction of proper roads.[3] Beginning in 1888 a series of iron bridges were constructed to cross major rivers.[4] In 1894 a Road Act was passed classifying Icelandic roads into four categories. The first were "High Roads" (also called "National Roads") that were entirely funded by the state. The second were "Provincial Roads" that were funded by the provinces except where they were could be used for carriage-transport, in which case there were subsidised by the state for up to half their cost. The third category was that of "Parish Roads" which were of local importance and funded by individual parishes. The fourth category was "Mountain Roads", which cross mountainous and upland regions and were largely bridle-paths marked by stone-cairns erected at the expense of the state.[3]

Annual expenditure of road-building rose from 23 thousand krónur on average between 1876 and 1893 to 1,859 in 1939, and between 1899 and 1929 a total of 159 bridges of 10 metres in length or longer were constructed.[3] In 1913 the first motor-vehicles arrived in Iceland, with the number reaching more than 400 in 1925. By 1933 around 3,000 km of motor-routes had been built on the island, with around 3000 motor cars being in use on Icelandic roads by 1935 according to one estimate.[5] A different estimate published by the British Royal Naval Intelligence division put the total length of roads in Iceland in 1936 at 4,400 km, of which 2,800 km were motorable, with nearly all the motorable roads being in the coastal regions in the west of Iceland.[3] The same Naval Intelligence study put the total number of motor vehicles on the island at 2,225 in 1940, of which 835 were motor cars, 1,120 trucks, and the rest buses and motor cycles.[6] This network of motorable roads linking Reykjavik to Akureyri was central to the German invasion plan under Operation Ikarus, which relied on motorised troops landed at Reykjavik and Akureyri to advance quickly along it in order to take control of the island in four days.[7]

By 1942 regular bus-services were operating between Reykjavik and Akureyri on the northern coast, with the journey taking two 12-hour days if conducted entirely by bus. At the same time a private company also operated an internal bus service for the Reykjavik area called Strætisvagnar Reykjavikur, operating around 20 single-decker buses.[6]

The Icelandic road numbering scheme is made up of eight numbering zones which divide the island and mostly follow the division into regions. Each numbering zone has a number which determines what the first digit of the number is.

• Street names in Iceland

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