Transport and infrastructure in Iceland

Our listing of the primary types of transport compares the infrastructure of Iceland with the average of all countries in Europe. Overall, the traffic routes are above average and in good condition.

› Airports in Iceland

Back to overview: Iceland

Road traffic

The network of roads and highways has a total length of 12,898 km. For each of the country's 372,520 inhabitants, this corresponds to 34.62 meters. This puts Iceland in 13th place in the global ranking. However, it is also important to note that the country's population density is very low at around 4 inhabitants per km². In this case, disproportionately long distances generally have to be covered to reach the more remote parts of the country.

With an average of 16 traffic fatalities per year (2013 - 2019), road traffic in Iceland is considered very safe. This corresponds to 4.7 accident fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 12.3 in the USA and 17.0 worldwide.

In Iceland, traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road, i.e. people drive in the right-hand lane and overtake on the left. Oncoming traffic comes toward you on the left side. This regulation was enforced on May 27th, 1968. Here you can also find an overview of all countries with left-hand traffic.

	total	per 1 mio inhabitants	per km²
	Iceland
Roadways	12,900 km	34,623.64 km	125.22 m
Railroads	0 km	0.00 km	0.00 m
Waterways	0 km	0.00 km	0.00 m
Commercial harbors	41	110.06	0.000
Airports	10	26.84	0.097

	total	per 1 mio inhabitants	per km²
	Europe
Roadways	6,708,900 km	11,154.38 km	1,111.71 m
Railroads	258,600 km	429.97 km	42.85 m
Waterways	54,800 km	91.17 km	9.09 m
Commercial harbors	15,273	25.39	0.003
Airports	573	0.95	0.000

Data sources used

• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)
• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)

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