On January 1, 2025, a total of 244,536 people lived in the Greater Reykjavík area, i.e., the continuous settlement stretching from Hafnarfjörður to Mosfellsbær. This accounts for nearly 63% of Iceland’s total population.
For the first time, the locality of Selfoss and its surroundings exceeded 10,000 inhabitants. That brought the number of localities with 10,000-99,999 inhabitants to three, Keflavík and Njarðvík with 22,377 inhabitants, Akureyri and its surroundings with 20,159 inhabitants and Selfoss and its surroundings with 10,478 inhabitants. A total of 53,014 people lived in these three areas, corresponding to 13.6% of the population. In rural areas, 21,498 people lived, representing 5.5% of the population. There is a total of 39 rural settlements with 50–199 inhabitants, but these account for only 1.0% of the population.
Women more likely in urban areas
The gender ratio differs depending on the degree of urbanisation. Thus, there are 1,032 men for every 1,000 women in the Greater Reykjavík area. This ratio increases in favor of men as the population of the settlement decreases, although the relationship is not fully linear. The most unequal gender ratio was found in the smallest localities settlements, those with fewer than 300 inhabitants, where there were 1,133 men for every 1,000 women, and also in rural areas, where there were 1,121 men for every 1,000 women on January 1.
About the data
Statistics Iceland redraws the boundaries of urban areas every five years, in years ending in 0 or 5. Thus, new boundaries were drawn for January 1, 2025. The boundaries are determined by linking together addresses that are 200 meters or less apart. Localities may extend across the borders of more than one municipality. One change was made to Statistics Iceland’s method: now at least 10 inhabited addresses are required for a settlement core to be formed. One settlement core exceeded the 200-inhabitant threshold and therefore changed from being classified as rural to being classified as urban, Tjarnabyggð in the Municipality of Árborg.