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Tórshavn is the center of the Faroe Islands. To the North West there is the 347-metre high mountain Húsareyn. In the 10th century, the population of city was about 19000. It is in the southern part on the east coast of Streymoy.

The Vikings established their parliament on the Tingenes peninsula in Tórshavn 825 AD. All through the middle Ages the narrow peninsula jutting out into the sea made up the main part of Tórshavn. Sources do not mention a built-up area in Tórshavn until after the Protestant reformation in 1539. Early on Tórshavn became the center of the monopoly trade, therefore being the only legal place for the islanders to sell and buy goods. In 1856 the trade monopoly was abolished and the islands were left open to free trade. The town has grown rapidly ever since the turn of the 20th century into the undisputed administrative, economic and cultural center of the Faroes.

According to the earliest source to the Faroe Islands, Færeyinga Saga, emigrants who left Norway to escape the tyranny of Harald I of Norway settled in the islands about the end of the ninth century. The Viking settlers established their own parliament called ting. Local tings where established in different parts of the islands. The main ting was established on Tinganes in Tórshavn 825 AD. Tinganes is the peninsula that divides the harbour into the two parts Eystaravág and Vestaravág. Færeyinga Saga says: "the ting stead of the Faroese was on Streymoy, and there is the harbour that is called Tórshavn". In the Viking Age it was a tradition to hold the ting at a neutral and thus uninhabited place, so nobody had an advantage of the location. In fact, there was no settlement at Tinganes to that time, but it was the most central place of the islands. The Vikings would meet on the flat rocks of Tinganes every summer. The Viking age eventually ended in 1035. The ting was followed by a market which gradually grew into a permanent trading area.