Althing

The Althing is Iceland’s national parliament, founded in 930 and widely regarded as one of the world’s oldest legislative institutions.

Þingvellir: A rift valley in southwest Iceland where the Althing first met and gathered until 1798. The Althing’s founding assembly met in this landscape, which remains central to its national memory.
Alþingi legislative process: The procedures through which Iceland’s parliament introduces, reviews, amends, and passes legislation. These procedures show how the modern Althing turns proposals into law.
Løgting: The parliament of the Faroe Islands, with roots in a medieval assembly tradition. Its history offers a close North Atlantic comparison to the Althing’s institutional continuity.
Icelandic independence movement: The nineteenth- and twentieth-century political campaign for Icelandic self-government and independence from Denmark. The Althing became a central forum and symbol in the movement for Icelandic sovereignty.
Icelandic Commonwealth: Iceland’s medieval polity, governed without a king from the settlement era until its submission to Norway in 1262. The Althing was the Commonwealth’s central institution for lawmaking and dispute settlement.
Icelandic parliamentary committees: Groups of Alþingi members that examine bills and other matters within assigned policy areas. Committee review is where much detailed scrutiny of legislation takes place.
Tynwald: The parliament of the Isle of Man, which traces its origins to Norse rule and medieval assemblies. Like the Althing, Tynwald links a modern legislature to a Norse-era assembly tradition.
Home Rule of Iceland: The 1904 arrangement that granted Iceland self-government in domestic affairs under the Danish crown. Home rule expanded the Althing’s political setting and Iceland’s control over its own government.
Grágás: A collection of medieval Icelandic laws preserved in manuscripts from the thirteenth century. Its laws preserve evidence of the legal order administered through the Althing.
Icelandic parliamentary elections: Elections that choose members of Iceland’s parliament through proportional representation in six constituencies. Elections determine the Althing’s membership and the balance of parliamentary parties.

Linked from 9 pages