Hvalfjörður

Hvalfjörður is situated in the west of Iceland between Mosfellsbær and Akranes. The fjord is approximately 30 kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide.

The origin of the name Hvalfjörður is uncertain. Certainly today there is no presence of whales in the fjord; while there is a whaling station in the fjord, whaling is conducted in the open ocean outside the fjord; likewise, it is modern and postdates the naming of the fjord. One theory as to the naming of the fjord is that early settlers encountered a pod of whales trapped in the fjord who ended up beached; the stranding of whales was in early Iceland a godsend in the meat that it provided, to the point that the word hvalreki means both "whale beaching" and "windfall or godsend".