Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Inhabited by people with Scandinavian ancestries (2016 population: 335,000), Iceland is of special scientific interest because it lies astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Here, the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates of the Earth’s crust are diverging, new land can be seen forming, and spectacular volcanic eruptions are periodically on display (as occurred memorably in 2010 when the Eyjafjallajökull volcano brought trans-Atlantic and domestic air traffic to a standstill for days on end). The capital, Reykjavik, is home to fully half of the country’s inhabitants. . . . In the 1990s, Iceland embarked on economic liberalization policies, and its financial industries and banks grew rapidly. For a while, Iceland was referred to as the Nordic Tiger; but then, not unlike Ireland which experienced a similar boom, the economy floundered with the onset of the global recession in 2008. Iceland’s government, closely involved with some of the troubled banks, had to be bailed out by the International Monetary Fund. Subsequently, plans were initiated to join the European Union, but in 2015 the government withdrew its bid, stating that its interests were better served by remaining outside the EU." [Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 17th Edition, p. 181]