Databases

The database contains interconnected and geographically coordinated information about the country’s population, families, households, lands and livestock. The information is mainly obtained from the 1703 census, the 1703 livestock census and the Land Register of Árni Magnússon and Páll Vídalín 1702–1714.

Curated collection of 3D scans from the Cultural Heritage Agency of Iceland on Sketchfab.

Curated collection of 3D scans from the National Museum of Iceland on Sketchfab.

At Bækur.is, you can browse and search for digital reproductions of old Icelandic books. The goal is to provide access to all Icelandic books published prior to 1870 as digital reproductions.

The database includes probate records, estate inventories, and auctions from the 18th and 19th centuries, preserved in the National Archives of Iceland. It also contains various documents related to personal property, such as those concerning divorces and bankruptcies.

ONP, Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, is a historical, online dictionary hosted by the University of Copenhagen, offering searchable entries, translations, manuscript references, and citations from medieval Old Norse prose texts

The database includes recorded content from 717 district magistrates’ court and session books, as well as 236 settlement books.

The University of Iceland Photo Gallery provides access to a collection of photographs related to the university’s activities and buildings.

Handrit.is provides access to a number of manuscripts from different periods. The oldest ones are vellum manuscripts from the 12th century, while the youngest ones from the 20th century are written on paper.

Heimildir.is is a digital portal provided by Iceland’s National Archives. It offers access to a wide range of digital primary sources related to Icelandic people and history, including church records, land registries, legal documents, and themed collections like lectures and featured documents of the month.

The Sound Archive consists of digital copies of commercially published Icelandic sound recordings along with interviews archived by the Centre of Oral History.

The Icelandic Saga Map project offers an interactive, geo-referenced exploration of the Sagas of Icelanders,

The National Film Archive of Iceland database provides access to Icelandic films from the beginning, both documentaries and other material.

The National and University Library of Iceland offers maps of Iceland online, including those from the University of Iceland, geographer Thorvaldur Thoroddsen, the Danish General Staff and Geodetic Institute (early 20th century), and the U.S. Army Map Service (1948-1951).

Ísmús – Icelandic musical and cultural heritage – is a database that stores Icelandic cultural data from the past and present: recordings, photographs, films, manuscripts and texts.

The Women’s History Archives is the only archive of its kind in Iceland, focused on collecting, preserving, and documenting women’s history. The archive houses unpublished documents, letters, manuscripts, and records. It also encourages the preservation of historical materials, supports research on Icelandic women’s history, and collaborates with related institutions.

Kvennaspor, a collaboration between Árnastofnun and the Iceland Academy of the Arts, explores women’s connections to the Icelandic landscape through medieval narratives, place names, and historical travel accounts.

Landmælingar Íslands, the National Land Survey of Iceland, provides various maps and other geographic data, including place names, aerial imagery, and more.

The Theatre Museum of Iceland preserves the rich history of Icelandic performing arts. This comprehensive database offers access to a vast collection of archival materials, including scripts, set designs, costumes, photographs, and recordings.

Provides access to around 1.500 artworks, sketches and metadata on Icelandic art.

Digital collection of the National Gallery of Iceland (also accessible via sarpur.is). The collection contains about 16.000 works.

Digital collection of the Reykjavík Art Museum.

Loftmyndir features interactive maps from numerous municipalities, offering diverse information on terrain, buildings, infrastructure, and more. A beta version of a 3D map of Iceland has also been released.

Málið.is is a one-stop online portal that lets you search multiple authoritative Icelandic dictionaries and language resources at once.

Menota is a network of leading Nordic archives, libraries and research departments working with medieval manuscript facsimiles and texts in the Nordic languages and in Latin. The aim of Menota is to preserve and publish medieval texts in digital form and to adapt and develop encoding standards.

Data on registered heritage sites in Iceland, including both protected and declared archaeological remains. The dataset includes point, line, and polygon data, along with information on the sites such as type, function, and age.

Orðabelgur is a digital lexicon of words, concepts, and historical institutions, providing explanations of their meanings, history, and significance. The database currently contains over 3.000 entries.

Research Catalogue (RC) is a non-commercial, collaboration and publishing platform for artistic research provided by the Society for Artistic Research. The RC serves also as a backbone for teaching purposes, student assessment, peer review workflows and research funding administration.

In the RÚV Archive, you can explore a unique database of Icelandic cultural content from both television and radio. The archive is only accessible at RÚV in Efstaleiti.

Sagnagrunnur is a geographically mapped database of the main published collections of Icelandic folk legends.

On this website, you can look up information on over one million items in the database, sourced from 56 museums across the country.

Skáld.is is dedicated to Icelandic women poets and their works. It serves as a database and resource for information on female poets from Iceland, past and present, highlighting their contributions to literature. The site includes biographies, poetry collections, and research on women’s poetry in Iceland.

The National Archives of Iceland Register contains information on documented archival collections preserved at the National Archives. Approximately three-quarters of the total collection is included, with over 1.2 million entries.

The database links personal and town names between censuses from 1703 to 1920. There are also connections to other digital databases through personal and town names.

This database provides a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of prosimetrum (prose and verse) in the Sagas of Icelanders. ÍSP explores how verse quotation shapes the sagas’ literary aesthetics and offers insights into their composition and variation in Icelandic manuscripts.

Tímarit.is is a digital archive that provides access to millions of digitally generated pages of the printed cultural heritage preserved in newspapers and magazines from the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland.

The National and University Library of Iceland is involved in many projects, both individually and in cooperation with others.

This catalogue is intended to cover all available translations of sagas and þættir of Icelanders, Eddic poetry, bishops’ sagas, legendary sagas, chivalric sagas and kings’ sagas.