Antarctica

Region: Antarctica

Official language: None

Population: No Indigenous inhabitants, but there are both permanent and summer-only staffed research stations. The population engaging in and supporting science or managing and protecting the Antarctic region varies from approximately 5,000 in summer to 1,100 in winter; in addition, approximately 1,000 personnel, including ship's crew and scientists doing onboard research, are present in the waters of the treaty region.

Land area: 14,200,000 sq km (5,482,650 sq miles)

Time zone: UTC +0 (However, research stations may keep time based on the time zones of their home countries.)

Flag: While no flag has officially been adopted in any capacity, the most commonly cited flag for Antarctica is the flag adopted by the Antarctic Treaty Organization, which features a white map of the continent upon a blue field, or background. The flag symbolizes neutrality.

Government type: The Antarctic region is governed by a system known as the Antarctic Treaty System; the system includes the Antarctic Treaty, signed on December 1, 1959, and entered into force on June 23, 1961, which establishes the legal framework for the management of Antarctica; recommendations and measures adopted at meetings of Antarctic Treaty countries; the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (1972); the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (1980); and the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (1991). Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings are held periodically; at these meetings, decisions are made by consensus (not by vote) of all consultative member nations; by January 2016, there were fifty-three treaty member nations: twenty-nine consultative and twenty-four nonconsultative. Consultative (decision-making) members include the seven nations that claim portions of Antarctica as national territory (some claims overlap) and forty-six nonclaimant nations. Antarctica is administered through meetings of the consultative member nations; decisions from these meetings are carried out by these member nations (with respect to their own nationals and operations) in accordance with their own national laws.

Legal system: Antarctica is administered through annual meetings—known as Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings—which include consultative member nations, non-consultative member nations, observer organizations, and expert organizations; decisions from these meetings are carried out by these member nations (with respect to their own nationals and operations) in accordance with their own national laws; more generally, access to the Antarctic Treaty area, that is to all areas between 60 and 90 degrees south latitude, is subject to a number of relevant legal instruments and authorization procedures adopted by the states party to the Antarctic Treaty. Some US laws directly apply to Antarctica, such as the Antarctic Conservation Act, which provides civil and criminal penalties for certain activities unless authorized by regulation of statute. The Antarctic Conservation Act makes it illegal to take native mammals or birds from Antarctica and to introduce nonindigenous plants and animals to the continent.

Antarctica is the world's southernmost continent. Its name comes from the Greek word for "opposite the Arctic." The continent's existence had been suspected since ancient times, but it was not confirmed until the early nineteenth century when British and American commercial groups and British and Russian national expeditions began exploring the region. In 1840, it was established that Antarctica was a continent rather than a group of islands. Antarctica is the world's fifth-largest continent, after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. Surrounding the continent is the Southern Ocean, also called the Antarctic Ocean or the Austral Ocean, which in fact consists of the southernmost parts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. This region is the site of numerous subantarctic islands.

Antarctica is covered mostly by ice and snow and is the coldest place on Earth. There are no indigenous inhabitants, and the only human residents are members of permanent or summer-only scientific research stations. There are approximately thirty year-round research stations; in the summer approximately four thousand scientists and crew members live on the continent, while only about one thousand people remain through the winter. Numerous countries, including neighboring Chile and Argentina, have made territorial claims to Antarctica, but under the Antarctic Treaty, which entered into force in 1961, these claims are not recognized by other nations.

Note: unless otherwise indicated, statistical data in this article is sourced from the CIA World Factbook, as cited in the bibliography.

People and Culture

Population: The only human inhabitants of Antarctica are members of the various research stations, operated there by about thirty different nations. All nations that have a presence in Antarctica have signed the Antarctic Treaty. Some facilities operate year-round, while others function only in the summer. The winter population is estimated at around 1,100 people, while the summer population rises to around 5,000 (depending on the year). In 2017, for example, the maximum capacity of scientific stations ranged from 1,036 during the winter months (June–August) to 4,877 during the peak summer months (December–February). The main US–run stations include the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, located at the geographic South Pole, and McMurdo Station, on Ross Island.

For centuries, scholars had suspected the existence of another continent, which they referred to as Terra Australia Incognita (Latin for "unknown southern land"). This belief was partly based on philosophical grounds; a southern continent was needed to balance out the land mass in the northern hemisphere.

In 1773, British naval officer Captain James Cook became the first person known to travel south of the Antarctic Circle, but he did not sight the Antarctic mainland. The continent itself was first sighted in 1820, but it is not clear whether Russian, British, or American sailors sighted land first.

The first person to note Antarctica as a separate continent was Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the US Navy, during his 1838–42 expedition to the Pacific and parts of the Southern Ocean. Wilkes Land is named in his honor.

Exploration of Antarctica declined during the mid-nineteenth century but resumed in earnest toward the end of the century. Among the most important twentieth-century explorers were Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, and Vivian Fuchs of Great Britain, Roald Amundsen of Norway, Admiral Richard E. Byrd of the United States, and Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand.

Indigenous People: There is no native population in Antarctica. There is no record of human visitation before the nineteenth century, and the continent was uninhabited until the twentieth century. The only current inhabitants are personnel of the various research facilities.

The first person known to have been born in Antarctica was Emilio Marcos Palma, born in 1978 of Argentine parents at Base Esperanza, on the Antarctic Peninsula. Argentina was alleged to have arranged Palma's birth to take place on Antarctica as part of an effort to validate Argentina's territorial claims.

Education: There are no schools in Antarctica, as the population consists almost exclusively of scientific researchers.

Health Care: Medical care is difficult in Antarctica, due to the harsh climate and the immense distances between research facilities and their home countries. Advances in telecommunications have made telemedicine possible, allowing on-site medical personnel to consult with experts back home.

The polar winter makes Antarctica inaccessible for much of the year, even for military transport aircraft. In 1999, the United States performed a dangerous medical rescue of Dr. Jerri Nielsen, a physician at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station who was suffering from breast cancer. The National Science Foundation (NSF) first sent a transport plane to drop medical supplies, then the 109th Air National Guard airlifted Nielsen back home. In June 2016, a medical rescue plane airlifted two workers out of the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station during the polar winter, marking just the third winter evacuation in the station's sixty-year history.

Throughout the early 2020s multiple research stations in Antarctica experienced outbreaks of COVID-19, the deadly respiratory disease which caused a global pandemic at that time. Another challenging medical evacuation was successfully completed in September 2023, when rescuers evacuated a sick individual from Australia's Casey Station.

Food: There is no "Antarctic cuisine," as there is no native population of Antarctica. The research scientists eat food they bring with them or that they grow locally in greenhouses.

Arts & Entertainment: Entertainment for those living in Antarctica has become more extensive due to advances in mass media and telecommunications. Research stations are linked to the rest of the world by satellite and wireless communications. US facilities receive the American Forces Antarctic Network, an internal cable television system based at McMurdo. Antarctica even has its own Internet country code (".aq"). Local news media include the Antarctic Sun, a news website about the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) funded by the National Science Foundation.

Over the decades, the southernmost continent's stark landscape and climate have also provided powerful inspiration to writers. Antarctica has served as a setting for many works of literature, films, and television programs. One of the earliest literary works set in Antarctica was Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 story "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket." Films set in Antarctica include The Thing (1982), based on the 1951 movie The Thing from Another World, and the television movie Ice Bound (2003), the story of Dr. Jerri Nielsen. The Academy Award–winning documentary March of the Penguins (2005) was filmed in Antarctica. Documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog's 2007 film Encounters at the End of the World also takes place there.

Holidays: There are no holidays in Antarctica, other than those celebrated by the staffs of the local research facilities.

Environment and Geography

Topography: Almost all of Antarctica is covered with a massive ice sheet (around 3.2 kilometers, or 2 miles, thick) containing most of the world's ice. Only a few coastal areas—about 2 percent of total land area—are ice-free, and these are simply barren rock. The ice-free areas include the Antarctic Peninsula, Wilkes Land, and parts of Ross Island and Victoria Land. Much of the coast is covered by floating ice. In 1993, Russian scientists discovered a massive freshwater lake beneath the surface. The lake, named Lake Vostok, may contain previously unknown life-forms.

A mountain range divides the continent into two major regions, Western Antarctica and Eastern Antarctica, which lie opposite South America and Australia, respectively. The eastern half is far higher in elevation. The highest point in Antarctica is the Vinson Massif, at 4,897 meters (16,070 feet). The lowest point is the Denman Glacier, at 3,500 meters (about 11,483 feet) below sea level, the lowest known point in the world that is not under seawater. Antarctica and the surrounding islands have several active volcanoes; one of the best known is Ross Island's Mount Erebus, the world's southernmost active volcano, with a maximum elevation of 3,794 meters (12,450 feet).

Like most other aspects of life on Antarctica, transportation is difficult. By air, it takes about fourteen hours to reach Antarctica from New Zealand. Air travel in Antarctica itself is difficult due to the region's extreme weather and climate. Large-scale commercial air travel essentially ended after 1979, when a tourist flight from New Zealand crashed into Mount Erebus, killing more than 250 passengers.

Some tourist flights over Antarctica do operate out of Australia. Several dozen research stations have runways or heliports, but no air-travel facilities are open to the general public. Arriving by sea is also difficult, due to the frigid and often-stormy waters of the Southern Ocean and the fact that Antarctica lacks any developed ports.

Natural Resources: Rich mineral resources may lie beneath Antarctica, but the harsh climate and thick ice sheet make surveying and mining difficult. Small amounts of various minerals have been discovered, including precious metals such as gold and platinum and industrial metals such as copper, chromium, and iron ore.

Commercial fisheries have begun exploiting the marine life of the Southern Ocean. Krill (a small, shrimp-like crustacean), for example, is an important ingredient for many biotechnology firms in making health remedies.

Plants & Animals: Antarctica and the surrounding islands have their own unique ecosystem, adapted to the region's harsh climate. Antarctic flora consists mostly of various types of algae, lichen, moss, and liverwort. The Antarctic Peninsula, part of which extends north of the Antarctic Circle, is home to two species of flowering plants, the Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis) and the Antarctic hair grass (Deschampsia antarctica).

The subantarctic islands have a tundra climate, which supports various grasses and other tundra plants. Far under the ice, scientists have discovered the remains of ancient trees, including species such as the southern beech, that date from an era thousands of years ago, when Antarctica was much warmer.

Very few animal species live on Antarctica year-round; the largest native land animal is the Antarctic midge (Belgica antarctica), a wingless insect no more than six millimeters long. However, many marine species come there to nest and give birth to their young. Penguins and seal communities, including Antarctic fur seals, are found in great numbers along the Antarctic coast. Whales are found in the Southern Ocean, feeding on the tiny krill.

Despite the small human population, Antarctica presents many concerns for conservationists because of overfishing. There is concern that commercial fishing will wipe out or severely reduce the numbers of krill, a basic food for many Antarctic species. Climate change and increasing temperatures have also disrupted local animal populations; for example, researchers found that loss of sea ice contributed to declines in emperor penguin populations.

Climate: Antarctica's climate is the most severe in the world, but it varies somewhat depending on location and elevation. Most of interior Antarctica is bitterly cold; the lowest temperature ever recorded at ground level was –89.2 degrees Celsius (–128.6 degrees Fahrenheit), recorded in July 1983 at Vostok Station, which also holds the record for the lowest temperature on Earth. In August 2010, the NASA satellite Landsat 8 recorded a temperature of –94.7 degrees Celsius (–135.8 degrees Fahrenheit) on the Antarctic Plateau. However, because the satellite measured surface temperature and not air temperature, this did not break the official record. Another satellite reading announced in 2018 reached approximately –144 degrees Fahrenheit. Due to climate change, Antarctica also saw record-breaking warm temperatures during the twenty-first century. For example, in 2020 Antarctica experienced a record-high temperature of 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time in recorded history.

Antarctica experiences numerous storms, including blizzards and katabatic (gravity-driven) winds. The coastal regions have somewhat more temperate conditions, particularly the Antarctic Peninsula, which extends north of the Antarctic Circle. There is almost no precipitation. During the winter months, air travel becomes extremely dangerous due to storms and the intense cold.

In the mid-1980s, a major environmental issue was the large hole developing in the ozone layer above Antarctica. The cause was the use of industrial chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), used in factories as well as in many consumer goods. The concern is that greater amounts of ultraviolet radiation will reach the surface, contributing to climate change and harming marine plants and animals in Antarctica. In response to the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol of 1987, which had been ratified by 197 countries by 2015, phased out the use of ozone-depleting chemicals. By 2017, the hole in the ozone layer had shrunk and was projected to be "healed" by 2050.

Climate change in general continues to be an issue, however, and scientists monitor the status of Antarctic ice sheets and sea ice as signs of the progression of global warming. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), by the early 2020s Antarctica was losing 150 billion tons of ice annually. This ice loss disrupted local ecosystems and also threatened to affect global sea levels.

Economy

Industry: The only two economic activities in Antarctica are tourism and fishing, in addition to the scientific research conducted there. During the nineteenth century, sealing and whaling were major activities, but these have declined due to dwindling populations. Commercial fishers remain active in the surrounding waters, despite international efforts to limit their catches in the interest of conservation. The most common species caught include Antarctic and Patagonian toothfish, krill, and mackerel icefish.

Agriculture: There is no agriculture on Antarctica, due to the severe cold and the fact that almost the entire surface is covered with ice. The only food growing takes places in greenhouse conditions at the various research facilities.

Tourism: Because of the perilous conditions and efforts to maintain Antarctica's environment, there is relatively little tourist travel to Antarctica; according to the CIA World Factbook, 51,707 tourists visited the Antarctic Treaty area in the 2017–18 Antarctic summer, up from 43,915 in 2016–17. According to statistics from the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO), 55,614 tourists landed on Antarctica during the summer of 2019–2020. IAATO statistics also show that most tourists come from the United States, China, Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Under the Antarctic Treaty's Environmental Protocol, strict rules are set forth regarding what tourists can and cannot do during their visit.

Commercial flights to Antarctica, as well as aircraft overflights, began in the 1950s and became increasingly common through the 1970s. The 1979 Mount Erebus disaster put an end to commercial flights until the 1990s, when a number of charter services began offering flights again. Most tourists arrive in Antarctica by cruise ship.

Government

No government exists in Antarctica, but the region is governed by a system known as the Antarctic Treaty System. The continent's status is covered by international law under the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which went into effect in 1961. Member nations administer their own laws relating to their activities in Antarctica, including the conduct of their citizens and nationals there. The US Antarctic Conservation Act regulates the introduction or removal of plant and animal life.

The treaty "does not recognize, dispute, or establish territorial claims and no new claims shall be asserted while the treaty is in force." The treaty and its related agreements, such as the Environmental Protocol, are known as the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). By 2023 there were fifty-six member nations, twenty-nine of which were "consultative," or decision making.

Seven consultative members have territorial claims in Antarctica. These seven nations are Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, France, Norway, and the United Kingdom. The United States and Russia also maintain the right to claim Antarctic territory but have yet to do so.

Under terms of the ATS, Antarctica is to be used only as a site for scientific research. All military activity is prohibited, though military forces may take part in scientific activities. The treaty also calls for signatory nations to settle disputes among themselves, or submit them to the International Court of Justice. In 2004, the treaty nations established a permanent Antarctic Treaty Secretariat in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in order to administer the provisions more effectively.

The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (1991); the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings operate by consensus (not by vote) of all consultative parties at annual Treaty meetings.

By January 2024, there were 56 treaty member nations: 29 consultative and 27 non-consultative.

Interesting Facts

• The United States Antarctic Program (USAP) was established in 1959, following the International Geophysical Year of 1957–58, as a joint effort of the US Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation to conduct scientific research in Antarctica.
• The US Navy has played a major role in Antarctic exploration since Lieutenant Charles Wilkes's expedition of 1838–42. In 1929, Admiral Richard E. Byrd became the first person to fly over the South Pole. He continued to play a major role in Antarctic exploration through the 1950s.
• Unlike the North Pole, which is covered by floating ice, the South Pole is located on solid ground.
• Antarctica's ice sheet is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It holds 90 percent of the fresh water on Earth's surface. If this entire ice sheet melted, it could cause a 70 meter rise in global sea levels.
• Antarctica is the windiest, coldest, and driest continent on Earth.

Bibliography

"Antarctic Information." Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs, 2022, comnap.mammothweb.co.nz/antarctic-information/. Accessed 26 July 2022.

"Antarctica." The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 22 Jan. 2025, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/antarctica/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.

"Data and Statistics." International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, 2022, iaato.org/information-resources/data-statistics/. Accessed 26 July 2022.

"Exploring Antarctica—A Timeline." Royal Museums Greenwich, www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/history-antarctic-explorers. Accessed 23 Oct. 2023.

"Impacts of Climate Change." Discovering Antarctica, Royal Geographical Society, discoveringantarctica.org.uk/climate-change/impacts-of-climate-change/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2023.

"Parties." Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty, www.ats.aq/devAS/Parties?lang=e. Accessed 23 Oct. 2023.

"Vital Signs: Ice Sheets." National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 19 Oct. 2023, climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2023.