- Where
- Suður-Þingeyjarsýsla,
north Iceland - Coordinates
- 65.60° N
17.00° W (the lake, approx.) - Ramsar site
- No. 167, Mývatn–Laxá region;
listed 2 December 1977, 20,000 ha - Protected
- By law since 1974; now Act
no. 97 of 9 June 2004 - Nesting ducks
- 14 species
(Sigurgeir’s Bird Museum) - Best visited
- May and June
(Sigurgeir’s Bird Museum) - Advisory
- Iceland Level 1
A grey lake with little green islands shaped like upturned cups, black lava piled about the shore in heaps, steam rising off the hills behind. Over everything hung clouds of tiny flies, who had clearly been told I was coming. Ducks everywhere, of more sorts than I had names for, one with a white crescent on its face. I ate my sandwich with my mouth very firmly closed.
The short answer
Mývatn is a shallow lake in the lava fields of north Iceland, fed by cold and warm springs and drained by the river Laxá, which runs to the sea at Skjálfandi Bay. Visit North Iceland, the regional tourism site, gives the lake an area of 37 square kilometres. Iceland’s nature conservation pages say the lake and river were first protected by law in 1974 and are now protected under a special act, no. 97 of 9 June 2004, which covers the lake with its islands, the river to its mouth, a 200-metre strip along both shores and a list of surrounding wetlands. The Mývatn–Laxá region was listed as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention on 2 December 1977, and its Ramsar record gives it 20,000 hectares. The record calls the site especially important for two duck species that, in Europe, nest only in Iceland, and says virtually the entire European population of Barrow’s goldeneye breeds in the area. The second species, a Ramsar advisory mission of 2013 makes clear, is the harlequin duck, which lives on the Laxá and the lake.
Why it's worth knowing
A lake that feeds itself. The Ramsar Secretariat’s advisory mission of August 2013 sets out the chain. Mývatn was formed about 2,300 years ago by a major eruption; its larger, southern basin lies in a shallow hollow in a lava field, where rain sinks into the bedrock and returns as springs, cold in the south and warm in the north-eastern bay near the Námafjall geothermal area. The mineral-rich water grows diatoms and green algae, the mission wrote, and they support a food web of midges, crustaceans, fish and birds. In the river and the lake, the larvae of blackflies and non-biting midges feed a resident population of about 1,700 Barrow’s goldeneyes, which the mission put at 95 per cent of Iceland’s, and about 400 harlequin ducks; both, it noted, are otherwise North American species. The Ramsar record, last updated in 1992, lists the lake as the main Icelandic stronghold of Barrow’s goldeneye, the common scoter, the harlequin duck, the gadwall and the Slavonian grebe, and calls its mix of American, European, Arctic and boreal birds unique.
A lake that people have changed, and watch. The 2013 mission listed the pressures. Three hydro-electric plants were built on the Laxá between 1939 and 1973, with dams and gauges at the outlets that control the river’s flow to some extent. Diatomite was dredged from the lake’s northern basin from 1967 until 2004. The Ramsar Convention put the site on its Montreux Record of threatened wetlands on 4 July 1990 and took it off on 16 June 1993, according to the Ramsar record. The Mývatn Research Station was set up in 1975, after the 1974 conservation act, and its long monitoring of midges, crustaceans, waterfowl and fish made the lake, in the mission’s words, one of the better-known wetland ecosystems in the world. The 1992 record notes that the land around the lake is mostly private, and it lists traditions of fishing and of harvesting duck eggs among the site’s cultural values.
The field notes
The goldeneye and the harlequin
The 1992 Ramsar information sheet gives the figures of its day: Barrow’s goldeneye at 2,000 birds, at least 98 per cent of the European breeding population, and the harlequin duck at 200 pairs; the Ramsar site’s summary page gives the goldeneye as 2,000 pairs, so the two Ramsar texts differ on the unit. The same sheet lists 16 duck species breeding at the lake, about 10,000 pairs in all, led by the tufted duck (3,800 pairs), the scaup (1,800) and the wigeon (1,100), with 250 pairs of Slavonian grebes, red-throated and great northern divers, thousands of pairs of golden plovers and red-necked phalaropes, and 5 to 10 pairs each of gyrfalcons and merlins. Whooper swans, 500 to 700 of them, gather to moult, stage and winter, and the goldeneyes stay through the winter. Sigurgeir’s Bird Museum, on the shore, counts 14 duck species nesting at Mývatn and the Laxá; the museum and the Ramsar sheet were written years apart.
Craters with no volcano under them
Iceland’s nature conservation pages call the pseudocraters by Mývatn among the most remarkable natural monuments in the country, because so many large, well-formed ones are rarely found in one place. They form, the pages explain, when thin, runny lava flows over wetland: water trapped under the lava boils and expands until it bursts through in huge steam explosions, so their surfaces are thick volcanic scoria. The Icelandic word, gervigígar, means false craters; the pages point out that there is nothing false about them, only that they did not form the way ordinary volcanic craters do, and credit the geologist Sigurður Þórarinsson with first understanding them. The Skútustaðagígar group on the lake’s southern shore was protected in 1973 and covers almost 70 hectares. The 1992 Ramsar sheet notes that a greenish-yellow lichen colours the tops of many of them.
Open water in winter
Birds can be watched at the lake all year, Sigurgeir’s Bird Museum says. In winter, large holes of open water stay free of ice, and whooper swans, Barrow’s goldeneyes, goosanders and mallards keep to them. The migrants begin to arrive in April; the museum calls May and June the most enjoyable time by the lake and says there is plenty going on all summer. The museum itself, opened on 17 August 2008, holds about 330 mounted birds and about 500 eggs, with 280 birds and 300 eggs on display, and has every Icelandic breeding bird except the white-tailed eagle.
July 2019Ducks on Mývatn, with pseudocraters behind.
Photograph: Alexander Grebenkov · Ducks at Mývatn · CC BY 3.0 · cropped
A female Barrow's goldeneye with her ducklings in north Iceland.
Photograph: Jerzy Strzelecki · CC BY-SA 4.0
A Slavonian grebe in breeding plumage at Mývatn.
Photograph: Jerzy Strzelecki · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
- Climb one of the little round craters, sit on the rim, and watch the pond at its foot until the ducks forget you are there.
- Pack a net for your face and wear it without embarrassment. (Wore it. The flies sat on the outside reading the list over my shoulder, and suggested several items.)
- Keep to the paths round the craters, and leave them exactly as tidy as you found them.
- The fields and shores here belong to the farms. Close the gates, keep off the hay, and ask before you wander down to the water.
- Come back in another season and see who has stayed. I should like to know, and I suspect the swans would like to tell me.
The pseudocraters at Skútustaðir. Iceland’s nature conservation pages call Mývatn’s pseudocraters among the most remarkable natural monuments in the country: small, steep craters made when runny lava flowed over wetland and the water trapped beneath it boiled and burst out in steam explosions, leaving surfaces of thick volcanic scoria. The Skútustaðagígar group on the lake’s southern shore has been protected since 1973 and covers almost 70 hectares, beside the Gígur visitor centre; the pages describe the craters as sensitive to wear and in need of special care wherever people walk.
Tally, in the marginLittle volcanoes all round a pond, with ducks dozing in their laps. I had walked the rim of three before it occurred to me to wonder where the fire had come from, and the ducks, when I looked down at them for an answer, did not seem to think it was any of my business.
Getting there
How to get there. Isavia’s subsidiary Innanlandsflugvellir runs Iceland’s scheduled airports other than Keflavík, Akureyri Airport among them, and Isavia says transport is available to and from Akureyri Airport. Iceland’s nature conservation pages put the Skútustaðagígar craters at Skútustaðir on the lake’s southern shore, reached by road 848, Mývatnsvegur, with parking at the Gígur visitor centre. The official pages read for this entry give no driving route or time from Akureyri, so we give none here.
When to go. Sigurgeir’s Bird Museum says migrant birds begin to arrive in April and calls May and June the most enjoyable time at the lake; in winter, swans and ducks gather on patches of open water. The US State Department notes that Iceland’s weather changes quickly, and the Icelandic Met Office publishes weather warnings by region.
What to arrange ahead. The Gígur visitor centre at Skútustaðir, where park rangers give information on nature, hiking routes and facilities, is open all year, according to Vatnajökull National Park, which runs it and is now under Iceland’s Nature Conservation Agency; its page gives opening hours of 9:00 to 18:00 from 15 May 2026. The centre has an exhibition and toilets, the conservation pages say.
Access. The conservation pages describe the pseudocraters as sensitive to wear and say that special measures are needed to preserve them wherever there is traffic, so they are seen from the paths. The Ramsar record notes that most of the land around the lake is private.
Safety. The US State Department has Iceland at Level 1, exercise normal precautions (advisory dated 5 May 2026); it names quickly changing weather, dangerous natural features, active volcanoes and earthquakes, and says petty crime is common in popular tourist locations. As read on 29 October 2026, the Icelandic Met Office’s front page carried volcanic notes for the Reykjanes peninsula and Askja, and none for Mývatn.
Mark this place
Common questions
What birds is Mývatn known for?
Mývatn in north Iceland is known for its ducks. Its Ramsar record says virtually the entire European breeding population of Barrow’s goldeneye breeds there, and a 2013 Ramsar mission counted about 1,700 goldeneyes and about 400 harlequin ducks on the lake and the river Laxá, both otherwise North American species.
How many duck species nest at Mývatn?
Sigurgeir’s Bird Museum, on the shore of Mývatn in Iceland, counts 14 duck species nesting at the lake and the river Laxá. The Ramsar information sheet of 1992 listed 16 breeding duck species, about 10,000 pairs in all, led by the tufted duck, the scaup and the wigeon.
When is the best time to see birds at Mývatn?
Sigurgeir’s Bird Museum at Mývatn says birds can be watched all year, that migrants begin arriving in April, and that May and June are the most enjoyable months at the lake. In winter, whooper swans, Barrow’s goldeneyes, goosanders and mallards gather on holes of open water in the ice.
What are the pseudocraters at Mývatn?
The pseudocraters at Mývatn are small craters formed when runny lava flowed over wetland and the trapped water burst out in steam explosions, Iceland’s nature conservation pages explain. The Skútustaðagígar group on the lake’s southern shore has been protected since 1973 and covers almost 70 hectares.
Why does Mývatn have so many ducks?
Mývatn’s mineral-rich springs grow diatoms and green algae that feed huge numbers of midge and blackfly larvae, and those larvae feed the ducks, a Ramsar advisory mission explained in 2013. The 1992 Ramsar sheet describes the lake’s production of midges and blackflies as extreme.
Is Mývatn a Ramsar site?
Yes. The Mývatn–Laxá region in north Iceland is Ramsar site no. 167, listed on 2 December 1977 with an area of 20,000 hectares. It was on the Ramsar Convention’s Montreux Record of threatened wetlands from 4 July 1990 until 16 June 1993, during the years of diatomite dredging.
How is Lake Mývatn protected?
Mývatn and the river Laxá were first protected by Icelandic law in 1974 and are now covered by a special act, no. 97 of 9 June 2004. Iceland’s nature conservation pages say it protects the lake and its islands, the river to its mouth and a 200-metre strip along both shores.
Is there a bird museum at Mývatn?
Yes. Sigurgeir’s Bird Museum on the shore of Mývatn opened on 17 August 2008 and holds about 330 mounted birds and about 500 eggs, with 280 birds and 300 eggs on display. It has every Icelandic breeding bird except the white-tailed eagle, the museum says.