Mapping Icelandic groups abroad

A Facebook group with 5,800 members, aimed at uniting Icelanders abroad, was established two years ago. The group is a forum for Icelanders who have either moved abroad or plan to do so, Morgunblaðið reports. Its members fight for their common interests.

A recent effort by the Facebook group, called “Íslendingar í útlöndum – hagsmunasamtök” (Icelanders abroad – Interest Group) attempts to create a list of all smaller Facebook groups of Icelanders, in order to make it easier for people to find one another abroad.

That list enabled the members to create a map of the countries where they are to be found, which reveals Icelandic Facebook groups all over the world. In Europe, there are 163 of them and 35 in North America. Interestingly, there exists a Facebook group for Icelanders in Kazakhstan, Indonesia and Peru.

One must be careful, though, not to take the number of members at face value, since some people may remain in their group, even after they have moved back to Iceland.

According to February figures from Statistics Iceland, a total of 46,572 Icelandic citizens reside abroad. By comparison, Kópavogur, Iceland’s second largest municipality, had a population of 35,970 at the beginning of the year.

The largest group of Icelandic citizens living abroad resides in the rest of the Nordic countries, or 62.8 percent.