Flateyjarkirkja
Flateyjarkirkja is a church in North Iceland, Iceland — about 451 km from Reykjavik and reached by a ferry crossing scheduled around the weather window. Shoot it during the summer window, when light, road status, and crowd levels line up for photography, then use the GPS coordinates, parking notes, and nearby waypoints below to fold this stop into a longer photography route.
Overview
A church on Flat (Flatey) Iceland north of Iceland
As a photography stop, Flateyjarkirkja is a church in North Iceland, roughly 451 km from Reykjavik, reached by a ferry crossing scheduled around the weather window. Plan the shoot during the summer window, when light, road status, and crowd levels line up for photography. The downloadable Church map pins exact GPS coordinates, parking, and nearby waypoints so you can fold it into a wider route instead of hunting for the pull-off on arrival.
Flateyjarkirkja sits inside the church photography map for Iceland, alongside the other spots worth routing a day around.
Notes on this location
Compiled from published sources rather than a visit. Sources are listed below.
The church on Flatey, built in 1926, with interior murals of island life painted by the Catalan artist Baltasar Samper in the 1960s.
- Built
- 1926
- The murals
- Interior paintings of island life by the Catalan painter Baltasar Samper, made during the 1960s
- Where
- Flatey, in Breiðafjörður — an island about 2 km by 1 km reached by ferry
The murals are the reason to go inside, and interiors on an island with no road access mean working with whatever daylight the windows give on the day the ferry runs. The building itself is small and low against a flat horizon, so exteriors depend on sky rather than setting.
Light & aurora at this spot
Calculated from this location’s coordinates (66.163, -17.860). Iceland stays on UTC year-round, so these are local times.
- Summer
- Midnight sun in June — the sun does not set, so golden light runs for hours either side of midnight.
- Winter
- December: only 2.8 h of daylight (11:43–14:30), but the sun never climbs above 0.6° — the entire day is golden hour. Sunrise bears SSE, sunset SSW.
- Aurora
- Aurora-grade darkness Sep–Mar, peaking at 13.1 h a night in December. Not possible Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug — the sky never gets dark enough.
Bar height is daylight hours. Months marked • have enough astronomical darkness for aurora; the rest do not.
Questions & answers
Flateyjarkirkja is a church in North Iceland, Iceland, approximately 451 km from Reykjavik. Exact GPS coordinates are included in the downloadable Church map.
The recommended season for Flateyjarkirkja is Summer. For light, plan around blue hour and the first hour after sunrise; Iceland's long shoulder-season twilight extends usable conditions on either side.
Ferry access. You arrive by boat, so the timetable and the weather decide the day rather than road conditions. Check the sailing schedule before committing, and note when the last return leaves. The downloadable GPS map puts the waypoint on your phone; your own app routes you to it from wherever you are.
Flateyjarkirkja is best visited during Summer. Outside that window, expect limited access, weather closures, or significantly different photographic conditions.