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Comment by pard68 | Hacker News Reader

> has launched a page with information in Icelandic, English and Polish

Does Iceland have a large Polish population?

Yes, more Poles than Danes IIRC, which given Iceland's history is quite the feat. Similar to the UK, Polish workers occupy a lot of the builders/drivers/cleaners type blue collar positions in the economy.

I met a few Poles working as hotel attendants during my stay in Iceland earlier this year.

I had to call an attendant up to understand how in the word to turn the shower on (there was a long skinny faucet the water poured into the tub that had to be turned clockwise) which she said she was confused by it too and had someone show her. It was in an older Icelandic hotel that used their natural hot water (sulphur stinky but i didnt mind) from the ground for showering or any type of hot water use.

At least in the capital there are two separate systems for hot water, one with hot water pumped up from the ground, the other a heat exchanged cold water system.

Depending on where in the city you are, that is the hot water you get. The age of each building has nothing to do with it.

You're telling me that hot water is a utility in Iceland? You don't just get a cold line and heat it with your own water tank?

Yes, we have no gas infrastructure (for local heating of cold water) so we pipe hot water into each and every home.

Tom Scott has a small video on it: https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=OgMXjAQ5q14

Ah was visiting for the first time. I stayed at the Canopy Hilton and a Room with a View (3 different rooms there). 3 out of four rooms I stayed in were new to new-ish looking; didn't use hot water from the ground. The last one at a Room with a View was very old from the old style elevator (all other rooms used more modern /present day elevator) to the older building (hallways) to the room making me assume since the newer rooms didn't use natural hot water that only older places do.

By far the biggest minority if I might add. Danes are the second largest group, but there's 5 Polish people for every Dane living in Iceland.

Of course, Iceland has a total population of a mid-sized city, so we're talking ~21k Polish people compared to ~4k Danes.

Yup: https://statice.is/publications/news-archive/inhabitants/imm...

I'm assuming they have a sizeable Polish workers residing there.

I would have thought the polish workers would be a similar size to everyone else

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_in_Iceland

In my experience the Icelandic vikings are quite a bit bigger on average. ;)

Also, fun fact, from before the Polish immigration started in earnest.

Iceland's most popular chocolate bar is Polish (Prince Polo). Poland is for cultural reasons heavily dependent on herring, abundantly fished in Icelandic waters. In 1970s, communist Poland didnt have the cash to pay for it though. Iceland accepted chocolate bars in barter.

Their popularity was helped by the fact that Iceland had import controls on chocolate bars (not sure why... To protect local industry?) so there wasn't much competition. It's a nice chocolate bar too, which helps.

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