The Faroe Islands ( FAIR-oh), also known as the Faroes, are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and a rigsdel ('autonomous territory') of the Kingdom of Denmark. Located between Iceland, Norway, and the Hebrides and Shetland isles of Scotland, the islands have a population of 54,870 as of November 2025 and a land area of 1,393 km2 (538 sq mi). The official language is Faroese, which is partially mutually intelligible with Icelandic. The terrain is rugged, dominated by fjords and cliffs with sparse vegetation and few trees. As a result of their proximity to the Arctic Circle, the islands experience perpetual civil twilight during summer nights and very short winter days; nevertheless, they experience a subpolar oceanic climate and mild temperatures year-round due to the Gulf Stream. The capital, Tórshavn, receives the fewest recorded hours of sunshine of any city in the world at only 840 per year.
Færeyinga saga and the writings of Dicuil date initial Norse settlement in the early 9th century, with Grímur Kamban recorded as the first permanent settler. The islands were initially believed to be mainly settled by Norwegians and Norse-Gaels who also brought thralls (i.e. slaves or serfs) of Gaelic origin, as with Iceland; this was disproved by a 2024 study, which found the origins to be different.
Initially governed as an independent commonwealth under the Løgting, the islands came under Norwegian rule in the early 11th century after the introduction of Christianity by Sigmundur Brestisson. The Faroe Islands followed Norway's integration into the Kalmar Union in 1397 and came under de facto Danish rule following that union's dissolution in 1523. Following the introduction of Lutheranism in 1538, the Faroese language was banned in public institutions and disappeared from writing for more than three centuries. The islands were formally ceded to Denmark in 1814 by the Treaty of Kiel along with Greenland and Iceland, and the Løgting was subsequently replaced by a Danish judiciary.
Following the re-establishment of the Løgting and an official Faroese orthography, the Faroese language conflict saw Danish being gradually displaced by Faroese as the language of the church, public education, and law in the first half of the 20th century. The islands were occupied by the British during the Second World War, who refrained from governing Faroese internal affairs: inspired by this period of relative self-government and the declaration of Iceland as a republic in 1944, the islands held a referendum in 1946 that resulted in a narrow majority for independence. The results were annulled by King Christian X, and subsequent negotiations led to the Faroe Islands being granted home rule in 1948.
Within the Kingdom of Denmark, the Faroe Islands are self-governing apart from defence, policing, justice and currency, with partial control over foreign affairs. Because the Faroe Islands are not part of the same customs area as Denmark, they have an independent trade policy and can establish their own trade agreements. The islands have an extensive bilateral free trade agreement with Iceland, known as the Hoyvík Agreement. In certain sports, the Faroe Islands field their own national teams. In the Nordic Council and Council of Europe, they are represented as part of the Danish delegation.
The islands' fishing industry accounts for around 90% of their exports, with tourism becoming increasingly prominent since the 2010s. They did not become a part of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, instead keeping autonomy over their own fishing waters; as a result, the Faroe Islands are not a part of the European Union (EU) today. The Løgting, although it was suspended between 1816 and 1852, claims to be one of the oldest continuously running parliaments in the world.
The islands' endonym Føroyar, as well as the English exonym Faroe Islands (alt. Faeroe or the Faroes), derive from the Old Norse Færeyjar. The second element oyar ('islands') is a holdover from Old Faroese; sound changes have rendered the word's modern form as oyggjar. Names for individual islands (such as Kalsoy and Suðuroy) also preserve the old form.
The name's etymological origin has been subject to dispute. The most widely held theory, first attested in Færeyinga Saga, interprets Færeyjar as a straightforward compound of fær ('sheep') and eyjar ('islands'), meaning 'sheep islands' in reference to their abundance on the archipelago. Clergymen Peder Clausson and Lucas Debes began casting doubt on this theory in the 16th and 17th centuries, arguing that the West Norse-speaking settlers, whose word for sheep was sauðr instead of the East Norse fær, could not have coined it from this exact origin. Debes surmised that it could have derived from fjær ('far'), while Hammershaimb leaned towards fara ('to go', 'to travel').
Others have theorised an Old Irish origin: relating it to the etymologies of neighbouring Orkney and Shetland, Scottish writers James Currie and William J. Watson suggested the words feur ('pasture', 'eaten-up outfield') and fearann ('land', 'territory') as possible derivations, arguing that the original Celtic attestations of the islands made this more likely. Archaeologist Anton Wilhelm Brøgger concurred, elaborating on Watson's theory by positing that the Norse, having first learned of the islands from Scottish and Irish accounts as a fearann, could have coined Færeyjar as a homophonic translation.
Archaeological studies from 2021 found evidence of settlement on the islands before the arrival of Norse settlers, uncovering burnt grains of domesticated barley and peat ash deposited in two phases: the first dated between the mid-fourth and mid-sixth centuries, and another between the late-sixth and late-eighth centuries. Researchers have also found sheep DNA in lake-bed sediments dating to the year 500. Barley and sheep had to have been brought to the islands by humans; as Scandinavians did not begin using sails until about 750, it is unlikely they could have reached the Faroes before then, leading to the study concluding that the settlers were more likely to originate from Scotland or Ireland.
Irish monk Dicuil described a group of islands north of Scotland of very similar character to the Faroe Islands in his work De mensura orbis terrae. In this text, Dicuil describes a group of small islands separated by narrow stretches of water that was always deserted since the beginning of time and previously populated by "hermits from our land of Ireland/Scotland" for almost a hundred years before being displaced by the arrival of Norse pirates. There are many other islands in the ocean to the north of Britain which can be reached from the northern islands of Britain in a direct voyage of two days and nights with sails filled with a continuously favourable wind. A devout priest told me that in two summer days and the intervening night he sailed in a two-benched boat and entered one of them.
There is another set of small islands, nearly all separated by narrow stretches of water; in these for nearly a hundred years hermits sailing from our country, Ireland, have lived. But just as they were always deserted from the beginning of the world, so now because of the Northman pirates they are emptied of anchorites, and filled with countless sheep and very many diverse kinds of sea-birds. I have never found these islands mentioned in the authorities.It has been argued that these were likely the eremitic Papar that had similarly resided in parts of Iceland and Scotland in the same period, with these Papar also being the ones to bring sheep to the islands. A voyage tale, recorded in the ninth-century, concerning Irish saint Brendan, who proceeded Dicuil by 3 centuries, details him visiting an unnamed northern group of islands; this has also been argued to be referring to the Faroe Islands, though not nearly as conclusively. Some toponyms around the islands refer to the Papar and the Irish, such as Paparøkur near Vestmanna and Papurshílsur near Saksun. Vestmanna is itself short for Vestmannahøvn ('harbour of the Westmen'). Tombstones in a churchyard on Skúvoy display a possible Gaelic origin or influence.