Geography
What is Antarctica?
Quick answer
Antarctica is the frozen continent around the South Pole. It is the coldest, windiest and driest continent, covered by ice, and has no permanent residents.
In one sentence
Antarctica is the icy continent at the bottom of the world, where nobody lives permanently, and only scientists and visitors stay for a while.
Explained
Antarctica sits around the South Pole and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean (see oceans). It is about 14 million square kilometres, bigger than Europe. Around 98 percent of it is covered by a thick ice sheet, which is on average about two kilometres deep. This ice holds most of the fresh water on Earth.
penguin
snowman
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It is the coldest place on the planet. In 1983 the temperature at Vostok station dropped to minus 89.2 degrees Celsius, the lowest ever measured. It is also the windiest continent, and it is a desert because it gets so little snow or rain. The coast is far milder, and in summer can rise above freezing.
Because Antarctica lies at the pole, it has months of daylight in summer and months of darkness in winter. Plants are mostly moss and lichen. Animals live at the edge: emperor and Adélie penguins, seals, whales, and seabirds. Krill, tiny shrimp-like animals, feed much of that life. See the Arctic and Antarctic for how the two ends of the world differ.
No country owns Antarctica. A treaty signed in 1959 says the continent is used for peace and science. About 1,000 to 5,000 scientists and staff live at research stations at different times of year, studying ice, climate and wildlife. Ice cores drilled from the ice are like long records of past air and weather.
Examples
| Fact | Antarctica |
|---|---|
| Size | about 14 million km² |
| Coldest temperature | −89.2 °C |
| Ice thickness | about 2 km on average |
| Famous animal | emperor penguin |
| People | researchers only |
Common mistakes
- "Polar bears live in Antarctica." They live in the Arctic, in the north.
- "Antarctica and the Arctic are the same." Antarctica is land covered by ice; the Arctic is mostly frozen ocean.
- "It is a country." It belongs to no country.
Quick quiz
Antarctica
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Question 1 of 4
Which continent is the coldest?
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For grown-ups
Related topics
Continents
Continents are the very large areas of land on Earth. In English-speaking schools you usually learn seven, but some countries count six.
The Arctic and Antarctic
The polar regions are the freezing areas around the North and South Poles. The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land, and Antarctica is a continent surrounded by ocean.
Oceans
Oceans are the huge bodies of salt water that cover most of Earth. There are five: the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern and Arctic.
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest continent, with 54 countries, the Sahara Desert, the River Nile, the Congo rainforest and savannas full of wildlife.
Asia
Asia is the largest continent, covering about a third of the world's land and holding around 60 percent of its people. It has Mount Everest, the Himalayas and the most populous countries.
Australia and Oceania
Australia is both a country and the smallest continent. Oceania is the wider region of the Pacific that includes Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and thousands of small islands.