Iceland is home to the oldest parliament in the world, which started way back in the year 930.

The parliament is called the Althing. It was first held at a place called Þingvellir, which is a stunning valley located right between two massive tectonic plates that are slowly pulling apart. In the early days, there were no written books, so a leader called the Lawspeaker had to memorize every single law by heart. He would stand on a spot called the Law Rock and recite the rules out loud to the crowd.These meetings were the highlight of the year and lasted for two weeks every June. People traveled from all over Iceland to trade goods, meet friends, and watch the legal debates. Even though there was no king, the system worked because everyone agreed to follow the same set of rules. This period is known as the Icelandic Commonwealth, and it lasted for over 300 years without a single monarch in charge.Historians like Jesse Byock have studied these ancient records to understand how such an early democracy could survive. They found that the Althing even had a complex court system to handle disagreements between different regions of the island. While it took a short break in the early 1800s, it was quickly brought back and moved to the capital city of Reykjavík. Today, the Althing has 63 elected members who continue this thousand-year-old tradition of making laws.