Tjörnin

Tjörnin is the pond in the middle of Reykjavík. The town began to grow at its northern end in the eighteenth century, and Reykjavík City Hall stands there now. The pond was a sea lagoon that closed off more than 1,200 years ago, and groundwater from the Vatnsmýri wetland slowly made it fresh. It drains to the sea through Lækurinn, a stream that now runs entirely underground. A northern and a southern pond, Norðurtjörn and Suðurtjörn, make up the whole, with water flowing between them. Its birds have been protected since 1919; ducks, geese and swans are its characteristic species, and the mallard is the commonest. The pond freezes over in frost and has long been skated on, though hot water keeps a patch open beside Iðnó, where Lækurinn leaves it. Hljómskálagarðurinn, the park around the southern pond, is named after Hljómskálinn, built in 1923, which has long been where the city's brass bands rehearse.