Raufarhöfn, a village on the east of the Melrakkaslétta plain. In 1836 Raufarhöfn was officially designated a trading centre, having up to that time been simply a farm, named Reiðarhöfn in the 1703 census. The rauf, or rift, that gives the village its name is a shallow channel between the Hólmi, which falls steeply to the sea but has a good deal of vegetation towards the top, and the Höfði, which is at the southern end of a fairly wide point of land, south of the so–called Klif. The Höfði, on which there is a lighthouse, has a rich birdlife. It is quite high and an excellent place from which to view the village and its harbour. Good trout–fishing in the area. The harbour underwent extensive improvements in the beginning of the „herring years“ around 1950, and piers were built making it possible to land great amounts of herring. Indeed, Raufarhöfn was for a while one of the main salting and processing centres in Iceland. Raufarhöfn is the northernmost village in Iceland. There are the darkest winter nights but also the brightest summer nights and for a whole month in the summer the sun doesn’t set. There is an airport near the village but no scheduled flights. The church, designed by Guðjón Samúelsson, was built in 1927 and to a large extent rebuilt in 1979. The pulpit was once in the old church at Ásmundarstaðir, having been given to that church in 1851 by Danish merchants in Raufarhöfn. The altar piece is also from Ásmundarstaðir, painted in 1890 by Sveinungi Sveinungason (1840–1915).