Celebrating the National day of Iceland

Icelanders celebrate their national holiday, 17th of June, today because Iceland's Republic was founded on June 17 1944. Festivities are all over the country and in Reykjavik they start with the president, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, placing a flower wreath by the statue of Jón Sigurðsson, the leader of Iceland's independence movement in the 19th century, but he was born on this day in 1811. The prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir will then give a speech as well as the traditional "fjallkona" who is always dressed in Iceland's national costume on this happy occasion.

The annual parade starts at 13:00 from Hallgrímskirkja and goes down to Hljómskálagarður Park where there will be a lot of festitivities for the children. In the Hljómskálagarður Park there will be free bouncing castles and other play equipment, Hitt húsið art groups will have acts throughout the park among other things. From 14:00 the Theatre group Lotta, and the band Langi Seli og skuggarnir, Bogomil Font  will play, as well as various dance groups will perform. A power competition will begin at the pond at 14.00 and the Icelandic Circus will offer a performance at 16:00.

Food trucs wil be both in Hljómskálagarður Park as well as Klambratún Park where there is also a huge festive program that starts at 14:00.

A lot more will be going on in Reykjavik and here you can see the schedule for today.

In the neighbouring towns, Kópavogur, Garðarbær and Hafnarfjörður there are also a lot of fun activities going on as well as in towns all over the country. Most municipalities have the schedule for the festivities on their websites.