Our Beautiful Planet: Iceland's Dettifoss waterfall
September 22, 2017
Vatnajokull National Park is an Icelandic wonderland. And at over 14,000 square kilometers (5,400 square miles), it is one of the largest national parks in Europe and covers around 14 percent of the island nation.
Created in 2008, the park encompasses the entire Vatnajokull glacier in the southwest of the country and also brought together two other isolated existing national parks under one jurisdiction.
The park is known for its amazing contrasts: geysers spewing geothermal energy, wide untamed vistas, deep gullies, crystal clear streams, glacial ice, volcanoes and rock formations. The Vatnajokull glacier alone is larger than all the other glaciers in Europe put together — the country is called Iceland after all.
Mighty and violent waterfalls
Among the crowd of waterfalls one of them really sticks out — Dettifoss. Situated in the Jokulsargljufur region of the park in the north of the country, the Dettifoss falls sits on the Jokulsa a Fjollum river which flows directly from a nearby glacier.
The falls are 100 meters (330 feet) wide and drop of 44 meters before crashing on the rocks below, causing a dense spray that often obscures the view. It is the largest waterfall in Iceland in terms of volume discharge and is rumored to be the most powerful in all of Europe.
The country's natural phenomena are creating a real tourism boom as more and more people want to explore the geysers and glaciers of this tiny nation in the North Atlantic. Last year tourism overtook fishing to become the country's most important industry.
The nation with the unpronounceable names is becoming a victim of its beauty. According to the Icelandic Tourist Board 1.8 million people visited the island in 2016 — a 39 percent increase over the previous year. For 2017 they are expecting 2 million sightseers.
These photos were sent in by Berlin-based photography and travel enthusiast Andreas Podufal and were taken in July 2017.
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