What are the primary industries and exports of Iceland? Is it racially homogenous? And are the women as hot as they say?
Iceland is not a part of any continent. It was (and still is) created by volcanic eruptions and stands alone - just like Hawaii.
Culture is irrelevant to this discussion.
Armenia and Georgia are both in Eurasia. Dividing the continent because of cultural differences is pointless. The ground doesn’t care who trods upon it.
“Continent” is a cultural construct, not a physical one. Japan is considered Asia, even though you can’t walk to the mainland from it, and the British Isles are European because of millennia of interaction with other Europeans.
Frankly, Iceland has stronger cultural ties to Norway and Denmark than Zanzibar has to Tanganyika (despite the latter two being technically the same country). That makes it European.
1 - fish.
2 - very.
3 - subjective. You have a thing for Bjork, is that it?
Actually, they are a first world nation, and are making very concerted efforts to diversify their economy. Nevertheless, 70% of their export earnings are still from the fishing industry, which employs 12% of the population, according to the CIA World Factbook (aluminum and ferrosilicon are also exported).
They grow bananas, believe it or not (lots of available geothermal = hothouse operations, and bananas turn out to be a good hothouse crop).
Cartographers have traditionally considered it part of Europe, just like they consider Greenland part of North America for the purpose of publishing atlases. Their considerations are probably just as valid or invalid as anybody elses.
I´d say it is somewhere in between. Obviously, in Europe vs. Asia there is a strong cultural influence. But there is also a sensible definition of “continent” in the geographical sense, meaning a large mass of land with it´s own tectonic plate.
Of course it´s not clear - cut, India should really be a continent of it´s own in that definition etc. and traditional definitions of “continents” are surely rooted in cultural constructs.
But to say it´s only cultural is not true - Antarctica is widely accepted as a continent, and it´s not because the cultural uniformity of it´s inhabitants.
Fine. Define continents as ‘geographic continents’, then obviously politics becomes irrelevant. But you cannot simply state that Iceland is not part of any continent, for the reasons stated above. As it’s generally considered part of Europe due to political reasons, putting your fingers in your ears and humming doesn’t add to the discussion. And politically-speaking, Hawaii is part of N America.
India was a continent in the past, but no longer is since it’s now part of Eurasia. Africa will be two continents in the future as it is splitting apart.
To my mind a continent is a major, individual land mass and the satellite islands that are connected to that land mass’ plate(s). If anyone wants to go by a different definition, so be it.
Using culture, however, strikes me as foolish. By that measure, North America became part of Europe at some point in the last few centuries. After all, most North Americans trace their roots back to Europe. We speak European languages. So do almost all South Americans.
When geologists look at continents of the earth’s past they don’t divide them in silly ways because the Dimetrodons of one area behaved a little differently than the Dimetrodons of another area.
The continents were named–and defined–before tectonic plate theory was formulated, so I do define them differently from you. Respectfully.
Fish is the main export and industry of Iceland, tourism is also coming in strong these past few years. Lately we are not as homogenous as we had been, we import a lot of foreign labour to work in the fish-processing plants (as we are now too good to work with fish), mostly oriental and Polish people. The town I grew up in is now around 20% foreigners - mostly Polish and Portuguese - but many are about to become Icelanders.
I can only compare the women here with those in Scotland, England and Denmark. Our women are definately hotter than the ones in the U.K and a tad hotter than the Danish women, but their best trait is their legendary promiscuity. Fancy a dirty weekend in Reykjavik? 
Hello everybody.
I’ve been lurking for a while but now that I’ve registered, catching this little error is as good way to start posting as any…
Sorry Lemur, Finland is indeed politically a Nordic country, as you can see at the Nordic Council website.
I can see how the language difference can confuse you, but the definition of a Nordic country is more of a political and cultural than linguistic one. Besides, swedish is the second official language of Finland.
Fancy sharing any of these legends?
Just to complicate matters further, North America and South America are considered to be a single continent in many quarters. For example, the Olympic Charter explains that the five-ringed symbol of the Olympic Games “represents the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world at the Olympic Games.” Since Antarctica was (and essentially still is) uninhabited, the relevant landmasses are Africa, America, Asia, Australia, and Europe.
Of course, just as North America is connected to South America by the Isthmus of Panama, the Isthmus of Suez links Africa to Asia/Eurasia, resulting in what could logically be termed a modern supercontinent. So the concept of “continent” is indeed at least as cultural as it is geological.
The question of whether Iceland is a part of Europe being well-covered by others, I think another interesting question is why your Irish and English friends were convinced that it isn’t.
Part of the reason might be that the word Europe is commonly used in Britain to mean the European Union. The first time I heard this usage it was in the context of a British TV competition: “in what year did the UK become part of Europe?”. Needless to say I was pretty confused, but what they meant was, when did the UK join the European Union (1973, in case you’re wondering).
Another reason might be a casual use of “Europe” to mean the mainland of Europe, excluding Britain and Ireland (famous possibly apocryphal headline, “Fog on the Channel - Europe cut off”).
All this is not to exclude the possibility that your friends are just ignorant. 
Well, I asked someone I work with who is from France the same question and they also did not think of Iceland as part of Europe.
I get the feeling that it has more to do with the fact that they just don’t think of Iceland…at all. 