Farthings of Iceland

Iceland had come under the King of Norway's sway in 1264, and a change of law came with Magnus the Lawmender's lawbook of 1271.

These were not hospitals in the modern sense but primarily intended as lazarets or leper colonies that later became shelters for vagrants and beggars.

Later administrative divisions of Iceland (notably the voting districts established with the Constitution of Iceland in 1874) were based on the division of counties and municipalities and the farthings gradually lost any official significance, although they are still used in common parlance to refer to parts of the country.

Currently there is only one form of local government in Iceland, the municipalities, the counties themselves having lost any official significance in the 1990s.

In 1980 one Jóhannes Árnason suggested reinstating the farthing assemblies as means of distributing power from the state to the regions, but this was not seriously considered.