Give it a population of 300,000, about the same as Coventry, 70 per cent of them in the cities of Reykjavik and Akureyri. Ensure they are all related and give the majority the ability to trace their ancestry back to the times of settlement, more than a thousand years earlier. Endow these people with industry and ambition. Give them their own language – all but unchanged for a millennium – a literary tradition, three national newspapers, two television channels, free universal healthcare and education and close to zero unemployment. Give this country a consistently high ranking in the world standard-of-living charts and you have the Iceland of the recent past. Not a bad place, all in all.
冰島有30萬人口，與科芬特里人口數大致相同，其中70%居住在雷克雅末克和阿庫雷裏這兩座城市。他們都有親緣關係，大多數人的祖先都能追溯到逾一千年前的定居時代。這個島賦予了這些人產業和雄心。他們有自己的語言，千年來差不多沒怎麼變化，他們有著文學傳統，三份全國性報紙，兩個電影片道，免費全民保健和教育，失業率接近零。冰島這個國家在世界生活水準圖表上一直名列前茅。現在你瞭解了冰島在不久前的情況。總的來說，是個還不賴的地方。