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Iceland Iceland summit

Eldfell

You can see 150 km from here, looking north.

Calculating the panorama…

Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.

The view

Up to 150 km away.

Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.

84out of 100

Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).

  • 150 kmFarthest ridgelooking north
  • 100%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
  • 50%Seaof the circle where the horizon is the sea
  • 50Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
  • 183 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint

From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.

The sun

The best sunsets are from October to January.

When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.

  1. Jansouth-west6 min before the sea-level sunset22%
  2. Febsouth-west26 min before the sea-level sunset22%
  3. Marwest4 min before the sea-level sunset21%
  4. Aprnorth-west4 min before the sea-level sunset21%
  5. Maynorth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset21%
  6. Jun——sets on an open horizon16%
  7. Julnorth-west12 min before the sea-level sunset15%
  8. Augnorth-west12 min before the sea-level sunset21%
  9. Sepwest4 min before the sea-level sunset22%
  10. Octwest4 min before the sea-level sunset24%
  11. Novsouth-west6 min before the sea-level sunset24%
  12. Decsouth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset24%
  • Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
  • Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
  • %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).

The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.

The place

Eldfell.

Mountain

Eldfell is a summit in Iceland, 183 m above the sea.

On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 150 km away, looking north.

The sea fills 50% of the horizon.

50 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Hekla (1,491 m), 68 km away.

The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 100% of the circle.

The skies are clearest from October to January.

Eldfell 01
michael clarke stuff · CC BY-SA 2.0

Get there and stay

Plan the visit

A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.

Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.

From above

The viewpoint and its surroundings.

The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.

Eldfell seen from above (Sentinel-2)
Seen from above: Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6 × 6 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Around, in OpenStreetMap

  • 7other viewpoints within 5 kmFlakkarinn and 6 more
  • 10named peaks within 5 kmHeimaklettur, Blátindur, Upsaberg and 7 more
  • 1marked trails within 3 kmHeimaey hringur
  • 2shelters and huts within 5 kmSuðurey Lodge
  • 55car parks within 3 km
  • 11restaurants and cafés within 3 km
  • 2campsites within 10 kmÞórsheimilið, Herjólfsdalur
  • 10places to stay within 10 kmHotel Vestmannaeyjar, The New Post Office Hotel, Vestmannaeyjar Hostel and 7 more
  • cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
  • visitor centres within 5 km

Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.

In our other atlases

What you see from Eldfell, and what is near.

Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.

Peakyas12 mountains within 25 km
Eldfell · this placeEldfell279 m · 0.1 kmHelgafell227 m · volcano · 0.7 kmHeimaklettur283 m · 1.9 kmVestmannaeyjar · 2.1 kmStóraklif226 m · 2.5 kmDalsfjall · 3.0 kmBlátindur273 m · 3.1 kmStórhöfði · 4.2 km
Coastya3 beaches within 10 km
Klettsvík · 2.0 kmKópavík · 3.1 kmHöfðavík · 3.3 km
Cavernyas1 caves within 20 km
Æðahellir · 2.9 km

Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.

Photographs

The view, as people saw it.

Beacon at the top of Eldfell
Adam Greig · CC BY-SA 2.0
Detail of the settlement Vestmannaeyjar, Eldfell to the left, Helgafell to the right-2
Szilas · Public domain
Vestmannaeyjar, Eldfell and Helgafell from the industrial district
Szilas · Public domain

Other viewpoints nearby.

Eldfell

Iceland

  • 84Viewyas Score
  • 150 kmFarthest ridge
  • 50Peaks in view
  • 183 mAltitude

Hekla

Iceland · 68 km

  • 81Viewyas Score
  • 180 kmFarthest ridge
  • 72Peaks in view
  • 1,470 mAltitude

See the guide

Katla

Iceland · 63 km

  • 68Viewyas Score
  • 134 kmFarthest ridge
  • 2Peaks in view
  • 1,229 mAltitude

See the guide

Hvannadalshnúkur

Iceland · 187 km

  • 84Viewyas Score
  • 207 kmFarthest ridge
  • 41Peaks in view
  • 2,076 mAltitude

See the guide

Where these figures come from

Name and typeWikidata (Q217274) · CC0
SunJ. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms
Peaks in viewPeakyas (Wikidata, CC0)
Panorama and altitudeCopernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA
CloudsNASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2)
What is around© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons
Sister atlasesPeakyas, Islandyas, Coastya, Darkskyas, Cavernyas

Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.

The family

Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?

Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, in seven languages.