Ja.is is the online version of the Icelandic Telephone Directory. It contains all the registered phone numbers in Iceland along with a map service not unlike Google Maps. Ja.is is also the online home of the Icelandic yellow pages so you can look for the services that you need and then see on the map their exact location.
Ja.is is better in Iceland than Google maps for a few reasons. Firs of all, on ja.is you will see exact house numbers on the map so you can see where exactly in a street your destination lies. Furthermore, Google Maps doesn’t cover all the small towns around to country as well as the Já.is map does so if you are on your way out of Reykjavík it might be a handy tool to have. Finally the Já map is updated more frequently than the Google Maps so the risk of going out of your way to see something that isn’t there anymore is reduced significantly.
Along with being the home of Icelandic phone numbers and small town maps, you can also send free text messages to Icelandic numbers from the website but just remember if your intentions is to stalk someone – they do keep records of everything that goes through there.
Fun Fact: The Icelandic Phone Directory is listed by first names. Therefore, if you are looking for a Jón Jónsson, which is kind of like looking for a needle in a haystack since every other guy in Iceland is called Jón or has the last name Jónsson, you would look for the first name and not the surname. On Ja.is however you can look for people by their surnames but in the case of our friend Jón Jónsson for example, that search will turn up over 5000 results.
Ja.is was voted the best information website of the year 2009 at the Icelandic Web Awards and the same year they also got an award for their mobile site mja.is. In 2010 they also got an award for their Android and Symbian App that you can download at the Android Market.
