Everyone who has driven from Reykjavík to the north of Iceland knows Öxnadalur, the last valley on the descent towards Akureyri. Beautifully green in summer, with farms lying at uniform intervals at the foot of the steep slopes along each side of the river, Öxnadalur is the classic Icelandic valley. Above a certain elevation, virtually all the farms have been abandoned. Further down the valley they appear lush and prosperous, illustrating the combination of natural environmental, social, and economic factors that have shaped the Icelandic rural settlement pattern over hundreds of years.

This sequence of slides takes you from the upper valley (south-west) to the lower valley (north-east), showing both the physical landscape and some of the abandoned and operating farms to be seen along the way.