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People
Cultural Demography
Iceland's population of over 300,000 is extremely homogeneous, with the vast majority of Icelanders descending from Norwegian and Celtic settlers.
Icelandic, a language of Nordic and Germanic linguistic roots, remains largely unchanged since the 12th century. It is the predominant language spoken. Most Icelanders also speak another language, often English, Danish, Norwegian or Swedish.
In terms of religious affiliation, over 91 percent of Icelanders belong to the state church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Members of other Protestant churches and of the Roman Catholic Church are also resident.
Human Development
Iceland is a wealthy country. It is usually ranked within the top 10 countries in terms of GDP per capita ($US PPP).
The level of human development in Iceland is very high. According to recent estimates, the life expectancy rate in Iceland is 80 years of age for the total population (83 years for females and 78 years for males). The population growth rate was estimated at .52 percent recently and the infant mortality rate was estimated at 3.53 deaths per 1,000 live births.
The population is close to being universally literate with official literacy rates showing that 99 percent of the population can read and write.
About 4.2 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures in this country; about 7.4 percent of GDP is spent on educational expenditures. Access to education, sanitation, water, and health is regarded to be very good.
One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent rankings of 169 countries, the HDI placed Iceland in the very high human development category, at 17th place. Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief, www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for research sources.
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