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Torshavn, which translates as Thor's Harbour, has been holding parliament on the Tinganes peninsula since around AD 850, when Norse settlers established their thing, or assembly, on the rocky headland at the edge of the harbour. The wooden houses with turf roofs that still stand on Tinganes are some of the oldest in the Faroe Islands and the most visually distinctive: grass growing from the rooftops, dark-painted timber, and the pewter-grey Atlantic water on three sides. The oldest of these houses dates to around 500 years ago and looks like it has earned every year.

The Faroe Islands belong to the Kingdom of Denmark but operate with substantial autonomy, maintaining their own parliament (the Lagting), their own language, their own football association, and a very specific cultural identity that emphasises Norse heritage, the natural landscape, and a practical self-sufficiency that living on a remote North Atlantic archipelago tends to produce.

Torshavn is Europe's smallest capital by population, with around 14,000 residents, in a country of 55,000 spread across 18 inhabited islands. The scale means that everyone seems to know everyone, and the capital functions less like a metropolis and more like a very well-organised village with national ambitions.