Antarctica

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Antarctica is the world’s southernmost continent and contains the geographic South Pole. It is the fifth largest continent by area and is covered almost entirely by ice.

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Antarctica is called a polar desert because it is extremely cold and gets very little precipitation. Even though it is covered with ice, it receives only about 200 mm of annual precipitation along the…

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Marinus of Tyre coined the term Antarctica in the 2nd Century AD. The term means opposite of the Arctic Circle.

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James Cook crossed latitude 67°15' along the Antarctic Circle in 1773. He discovered nearby islands, but he did not sight Antarctica itself.

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The Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev is claimed to be the first to have sighted Antarctica in 1820.

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Roald Amundsen was the Norwegian explorer who reached the South Pole with his team on 14 December 1911. This was a major achievement in the race to the South Pole.

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Robert Falcon Scott led a polar party that reached within 857 km of the South Pole after Amundsen. Scott’s party died on the return journey after being delayed by accidents and bad weather.

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The Antarctic Treaty is an international agreement that governs Antarctica. It was first signed by seven countries on 1 December 1959, entered into force in 1961, and bans military activity and minera…