How Many Waterfalls in Iceland? (2026 Data)

Official map data from the Icelandic Institute of Natural History names 1,624¹ waterfalls in Iceland, about 40.8² for every 1,000 square miles of the country. The famous ones draw large crowds, with Gullfoss alone counting 1,065,280³ visitors in 2025.

The answer to "how many" still depends on what counts as a waterfall. A national layer of named falls, a Land Survey dataset of unnamed points and the volunteer map OpenStreetMap all give different totals, and the widely repeated figure of 10,000 waterfalls has no published source. This page compares the counts, ranks the tallest, most powerful and most visited falls, and shows how Iceland protects them.

How many waterfalls Iceland has

The most complete official list is a map layer kept by the Icelandic Institute of Natural History. It holds 1,624¹ waterfalls, every one with a name, and was built to show which falls enjoy special protection under Iceland's Nature Conservation Act.⁴ That law protects waterfalls and their immediate surroundings "so that the view of them is not spoiled", which means the layer is both a count and a legal register.

Most of the points come from the National Land Survey's IS 50V map database: 1,218¹ of them, or 75%². Another 222¹ come from ÍslandsAtlas and 96¹ from the 1992 book Íslenskir fossar by Jón Kr. Gunnarsson, with the rest from hiking yearbooks, fishing maps and local reports.

The layer is drawn at a map scale of 1:50,000, and each point carries a stated position accuracy of 50 metres¹, about 164 feet. That scale matters for the count: a small fall on a mountain stream may be missing simply because it was never named on a map, while a long series of cascades can appear as several points or as one.

The National Land Survey publishes a second, simpler dataset for European INSPIRE reporting. It marks 887⁵ waterfall points, without names, and it is the better guide to how many falls appear on a general map. OpenStreetMap, the open map edited by volunteers, holds 813⁶ waterfalls, of which 442⁶ have a name. Only 58⁶ of the mapped waterfalls carry a height, so the open map is useful for locations but thin on measurements.

None of these sources supports the popular claim of 10,000 or more waterfalls, and we found no survey or official body that has published such a count.

How many named waterfalls in Iceland are there?

The official layer has 1,624¹ named waterfalls, but only 726² different names. 473² names appear once, while the rest repeat across the country. Most names are built on the word foss, "waterfall", which appears in 89%² of them.

The most common names are descriptive. Fossar, simply "waterfalls", and Beljandi, "the roaring one", each name 23¹ falls. Dynjandi, "the thundering one", appears 19¹ times, as do Stórifoss, "big waterfall", and Selfoss. Famous names repeat too: the layer has 13¹ waterfalls called Goðafoss, though only one of them is the well-known fall in North Iceland. There are 18¹ waterfalls called Háifoss, "high waterfall", and 17¹ called Faxi, "the mane", after the way water spreads over a ledge. Even Gullfoss, "golden waterfall", is not unique: the name appears 7¹ times in the layer.

Where Iceland's waterfalls are

Placing each official point in its region, the Western Region has the most, 433² or 26.7%² of the total, closely followed by the Eastern Region with 412². The Southern Region, home to the busiest falls, has 280², and the Westfjords 192².

The Southern Peninsula region has just 2². The capital area has 45², among them Álafoss and Tungufoss in Mosfellsbær.⁷ Across the whole country, 1,624¹ named falls over Iceland's 39,769 square miles⁸ means about 40.8² waterfalls per 1,000 square miles.

The two national map datasets agree on the pattern even if not on the numbers: the Land Survey's points also put the East and West first, with 248² and 209².

OpenStreetMap shows a different pattern. It has 228² waterfalls in the Southern Region, the most of any region and close to the official 280², but only 134² in the Eastern Region against 412² official ones.

The biggest waterfall in Iceland depends on the measure

By height, Morsárfoss in Vatnajökull National Park is the tallest known waterfall in the country. It falls from the Morsárjökull glacier down a steep mountain slope in several steps, and measurements show at least one drop of about 787 feet¹⁰ (240 m). It lies east of Skaftafell and is not an easily reached roadside fall: seeing it up close takes a long hike.¹⁰

Glymur in Hvalfjörður, described by the regional tourism office as the tallest accessible waterfall in the country, drops 650 feet¹¹ (198 m). Hengifoss in East Iceland follows at about 420 feet¹² (128 m), then Háifoss at 400 feet¹³ (122 m) and Dynjandi in the Westfjords at 325 feet⁷ (99 m).

The best-known falls on the south coast are smaller. Seljalandsfoss drops about 203 feet¹⁴ (62 m) and Skógafoss about 197 feet⁷ (60 m). Even the tallest Icelandic fall is modest on a world scale: Angel Falls in Venezuela drops 3,212 feet¹⁵ (979 m), so Morsárfoss is about 25%² of its height.

Several well-known falls come in groups. Gljúfrabúi, hidden in a gorge next to Seljalandsfoss, drops about 131 feet¹⁴ (40 m). On the trail to Hengifoss, Litlanesfoss falls 25 to 30 metres¹², about 82 to 98 feet, framed by basalt columns. Below Dettifoss, Hafragilsfoss drops 89 feet¹⁶ (27 m), and above it Selfoss drops 33 feet¹⁶ (10 m).

Biggest waterfall in Europe: Iceland's claim

By force of water, the leader is Dettifoss on the glacial river Jökulsá á Fjöllum. The University of Iceland's science web calls it the most powerful waterfall in Iceland,²⁰ and Vatnajökull National Park describes it as considered the most powerful in Europe.¹⁶ It is 144 feet¹⁷ high and about 328 feet¹⁷ (100 m) wide, and it is slowly eating its way upstream, moving about half a metre¹⁶ (1.6 feet) a year.

Power is not the same as volume. The same science web notes that no Icelandic waterfall comes close to the Rhine Falls in Switzerland for the amount of water, and that Iceland's most voluminous fall is Urriðafoss on Þjórsá, with an average flow of 12,819 cubic feet per second²⁰ (363 m³/s). Dettifoss carries about 6,816 cubic feet per second²¹ (193 m³/s) on average, according to a Perlan museum guide.

Height and flow together decide the power. Multiplying the two, we estimate Dettifoss at about 83 megawatts² of falling-water power and Gullfoss at about 33 megawatts², so Dettifoss has roughly 2.5 times² the power. For comparison, Niagara Falls in peak tourist season carries 100,000 cubic feet per second¹⁵, which works out at about 1,584 megawatts² over the Horseshoe Falls drop, around 19 times² Dettifoss.

Width tells a similar story. Dettifoss is Iceland's broad giant at about 328 feet¹⁷ across, Goðafoss is 98 feet¹⁹ wide and Skógafoss 82 feet⁷. Niagara's Horseshoe Falls stretches about 2,200 feet¹⁵ and drops 188 feet¹⁵, taller than Dettifoss as well as wider.

Both are moving. Niagara Parks says Niagara Falls has retreated about 7 miles¹⁵ in 12,500 years, an average of close to 3 feet² a year, while Dettifoss is moving upstream by about half a metre¹⁶ a year.

The most visited waterfalls in Iceland

The Icelandic Tourist Board and the Environment Agency run automatic counters at popular natural sites, a network that grew from 6 to 24 sites in 2020 and 2021.²² Eight waterfalls have a full year of counts for 2025, and Gullfoss is in a class of its own: its upper-area counter recorded 1,065,280³ visitors, 3.7 times² as many as Goðafoss with 291,690³.

Dettifoss comes third with 264,855³ on its west bank, followed by Hraunfossar with 148,554³ and Hengifoss with 102,664³. The remote Dynjandi in the Westfjords counted 78,395³, and Glymur, reached only on foot, 47,408³.

Some sites have a second counter on another path, so these figures are a floor, not a total. The west bank of Goðafoss counted another 133,895³ passes in 2025, and the east bank of Dettifoss 58,359³. At Gullfoss, a second counter in the lower area recorded 348,034³ passes, even though it logged no counts from April to June 2025, and the eastern trail at Hengifoss added 20,199³. Adding both banks gives about 425,585² counted passes at Goðafoss and 323,214² at Dettifoss, although some visitors walk past both counters. Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss, two of the best-known south coast falls, have no counter in the dashboard.³

Counts have grown since 2022. Between 2022 and 2025, counts rose by 51%² at Gullfoss, 43%² at Dettifoss and 67%² at Dynjandi.

Is Gullfoss the biggest waterfall in Iceland?

Gullfoss is the most visited, not the tallest or the most powerful. Its two steps drop 11¹⁸ and 20 metres¹⁸, about 102 feet² in total, into a gorge about 1.6 miles¹⁸ (2.5 km) long and 230 feet¹⁸ (70 m) deep. The Environment Agency puts its average flow at 109 cubic metres¹⁸ a second, 3,849 cubic feet², rising to 130 cubic metres¹⁸ in summer; the largest flood on record reached 2,000 cubic metres¹⁸ a second.

That flood was about 18 times² the average flow, which shows how much a glacial river can change. Gullfoss is on Hvítá, which flows from the lake Hvítárvatn at the foot of the Langjökull glacier, and the Environment Agency notes that the rock behind the falls includes a loose conglomerate layer that the water washes out easily, which is why the falls keep cutting back into the gorge.¹⁸

Visitor numbers follow the seasons, but less sharply than elsewhere. In 2025 the busiest month at Gullfoss was August, with 165,668³ visitors or about 5,344 a day², and the quietest was December, with 30,320³. Over the year the average was 2,919² visitors a day.

Remote waterfalls depend far more on summer. Gullfoss got 44%² of its 2025 visitors in June, July and August. At Dettifoss, where the western access road gets only limited winter service,¹⁶ the share was 59%², and at Dynjandi in the Westfjords 74%². In January 2025, Dettifoss's west-bank counter recorded only 166³ visitors, against 47,289³ at Gullfoss.

This year's counts show diverging fortunes. From January to August 2026, Gullfoss counted 13.1%² more visitors than in the same months of 2025, and Glymur 11.0%² more. Dettifoss counted 19.0%² fewer, and Hengifoss, adding its two counters together, 35.6%² fewer. A new counter at Háifoss recorded 34,584³ visitors from February to August 2026.

Protected waterfalls in Iceland

Every waterfall enjoys a basic level of protection under article 61 of the Nature Conservation Act, and disturbing one requires a permit and a strong reason.⁴ A smaller group has been formally protected as a nature reserve or natural monument, managed by the Nature Conservation Agency.⁷ Gullfoss led the way in 1979⁷, followed by Dynjandi in 1981⁷ and Skógafoss and Hraunfossar in 1987⁷. The Dettifoss series was protected in 1996⁷, Álafoss and Tungufoss near Reykjavík in 2013²³, and Goðafoss in 2020⁷.

Gullfoss has the most famous protection story. In 1907²⁴ an Englishman tried to acquire the waterfall, and in the same year a law limited ownership of Icelandic waterfalls to people and companies based in Iceland, unless special permission was given. A lease on the falls lapsed in 1928²⁴; Sigríður Tómasdóttir of the farm Brattholt, who had campaigned to keep the falls unharmed, is remembered with a memorial set up by the falls in 1978²⁴. The state bought Gullfoss in 1945²⁴, and the reserve created in 1979 covers 164.2 hectares⁷, about 406 acres².

The protected areas vary widely in size. The Dynjandi natural monument, which covers the whole series of falls on the river Dynjandisá, is the largest of those with a published size, at 6.4 square kilometres⁷, about 2.5 square miles, while Álafoss and Tungufoss each cover just 1.4 hectares⁷, about 3 acres. Goðafoss, protected most recently, covers 0.224 square kilometres⁷, about 55 acres.

How far the waterfalls are from Reykjavík

Several famous falls are close to the capital. By map routing, Öxarárfoss at Þingvellir is about 32 miles²⁵ away, Glymur 43 miles²⁵, Gullfoss 76 miles²⁵ and Seljalandsfoss 79 miles²⁵, each under about 2.0 hours²⁵ of driving without stops. Skógafoss is 96 miles²⁵ away.

The waterfalls of the north and east need overnight trips. Goðafoss is about 258 miles²⁵ from Reykjavík, Dettifoss 320 miles²⁵, or 7.6 hours²⁵ of driving, and Hengifoss 349 miles²⁵. In between, Svartifoss in Skaftafell is 203 miles²⁵ away, about 4.7 hours²⁵, and Dynjandi in the Westfjords 221 miles²⁵, about 5.2 hours²⁵. Kirkjufellsfoss on the Snæfellsnes peninsula is 110 miles²⁵ from the capital.

What the numbers mean

For a traveller, the useful number is not 1,624 or 10,000 but the handful of falls within reach. The official layer suggests more than 1,600¹ named waterfalls are worth a place name, yet the counters show visits concentrated on a few: Gullfoss alone counted more visitors in 2025 than the other seven counted waterfalls combined, 1,065,280³ against 948,810².

Gullfoss's counter recorded about 5,344² visitors a day in August 2025, while Glymur, taller than any of the famous south coast falls, drew 47,408³ in the whole year. For comparison, Niagara Falls State Park on the US side alone reported more than 9.5 million²⁶ visitors in 2024, about 8.8 times² the count at Gullfoss that year.

Only 8 of Iceland's 1,624 named waterfalls have a full year of visitor counts, so what is known about crowds covers a tiny share of the falls. The rest, from the 23¹ falls called Beljandi to Morsárfoss at the foot of its glacier, are counted only as points on a map.

Conclusions

1. Iceland has at least 1,624¹ named waterfalls in official data, while no official body publishes a count that includes unnamed falls; the popular "10,000" has no published source.
2. The East and West have the most waterfalls, with 845² of the named falls between them, while the Southern Peninsula region has only 2².
3. There is no single biggest waterfall: Morsárfoss is the tallest at about 787 feet¹⁰, Dettifoss the most powerful, and Urriðafoss carries the most water, at 12,819 cubic feet per second²⁰.
4. Gullfoss is the most visited by a wide margin, with 1,065,280³ visitors counted in 2025, and it was the first of Iceland's formally protected waterfalls, a nature reserve since 1979⁷.