Constituencies of Iceland

File:Electoral districts of Iceland.svg

Constituencies of Iceland

Template:Politics of Iceland Iceland is divided into six constituencies for the purpose of selecting representatives to parliament.<ref name="NEC p4">National Electoral Commission of Iceland 2013, p. 4</ref>

History

The current division was established by a 1999 constitution amendment and was an attempt to balance the weight of different districts of the country whereby voters in the rural districts have greater representation per head than voters in Reykjavík city and its suburbs.<ref name="NEC p4" /> The new division comprises three countryside constituencies (NW, NE and S) and three city constituencies (RN, RS and SW).<ref name="NEC p5">National Electoral Commission of Iceland 2013, p. 5</ref> The imbalance of votes between city and country still exists and a provision in the election law states that if the number of votes per seat in parliament in one constituency goes below half of what it is in any other constituency, one seat shall be transferred between them.<ref name="NEC p4" /> This has occurred three times, in the elections in 2007, 2013 and 2024. On each occasion, a seat was transferred from the Northwest constituency to the Southwest constituency.<ref name="NEC p6">National Electoral Commission of Iceland 2013, p. 6</ref>

Composition

The constituencies are the following:<ref name="NEC p5" />

Data for the table below is current as of the 2017 election:

Constituency		Electors	Seats	Electors per seat	%Template:Efn
English	Icelandic
Reykjavík North	Reykjavíkurkjördæmi norður	46,073	11	4,188	78.3%
Reykjavík South	Reykjavíkurkjördæmi suður	45,584	11	4,144	77.5%
Southwest	Suðvesturkjördæmi	69,544	14	5,350	100.0%
Northwest	Norðvesturkjördæmi	21,521	7	2,690	50.3%
Northeast	Norðausturkjördæmi	29,620	10	2,836	55.4%
South	Suðurkjördæmi	36,143	10	3,251	67.6%
Source: Statistics Iceland

References

• "Apportionment of Seats to Althingi, the Icelandic Parliament" (PDF). National Electoral Commission of Iceland. 2013. Retrieved 1 August 2015.

See also

• Administrative divisions of Iceland
• Geography of Iceland
• Municipalities of Iceland
• Regions of Iceland

External links

• Template:In lang Article on Alþingi website