Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Most of Antarctica is a polar desert<\/a>, with annual precipitation of only 8 in along the coast and far less inland. The temperature in Antarctica has reached \u2212128.6 \u00b0F or even \u2212135.8 \u00b0F as measured from space, though the average for the third quarter (the coldest part of the year) is \u221281 \u00b0F. Anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at research stations<\/a> scattered across the continent. Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae<\/a>, bacteria<\/a>, fungi<\/a>, plants<\/a>, protista<\/a>, and certain animals, such as mites<\/a>, nematodes<\/a>, penguins<\/a>, seals<\/a> and tardigrades<\/a>. Vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra<\/a>.<\/p>\n Antarctica is noted as the last region on Earth in recorded history to be discovered, unseen until 1820 when the Russian expedition<\/a> of Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen<\/a> and Mikhail Lazarev<\/a> on Vostok<\/a> and Mirny<\/a> sighted the Fimbul ice shelf<\/a>. The continent, however, remained largely neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack of easily accessible resources, and isolation. In 1895, the first confirmed landing was conducted by a team of Norwegians.<\/p>\n Antarctica is a de facto condominium<\/a>, governed by parties to the Antarctic Treaty System<\/a> that have consulting status. Twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, and thirty-eight have signed it since then. The treaty prohibits military activities and mineral mining, prohibits nuclear explosions and nuclear waste disposal, supports scientific research, and protects the continent’s ecozone<\/a>. Ongoing experiments are conducted by more than 4,000 scientists from many nations.<\/p>\n The name Antarctica is the romanized version of the Greek compound word \u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03ba\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae (antarktik\u00e9), feminine of \u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03ba\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2 (antarktik\u00f3s), meaning “opposite to the Arctic”, “opposite to the north”.<\/p>\n Aristotle<\/a> wrote in his book Meteorology about an Antarctic region in c. 350 BC. Marinus of Tyre<\/a> reportedly used the name in his un-preserved world map from the 2nd century CE. The Roman authors Hyginus<\/a> and Apuleius<\/a> (1\u20132 centuries CE) used for the South Pole the romanized Greek name polus antarcticus, from which derived the Old French pole antartike (modern p\u00f4le antarctique) attested in 1270, and from there the Middle English pol antartik in a 1391 technical treatise by Geoffrey Chaucer<\/a>.<\/p>\n Before acquiring its present geographical connotations, the term was used for other locations that could be defined as “opposite to the north”. For example, the short-lived French colony established in Brazil<\/a> in the 16th century was called “France Antarctique<\/a>“.<\/p>\n The first formal use of the name “Antarctica” as a continental name in the 1890s is attributed to the Scottish\u00a0cartographer<\/a>\u00a0John George Bartholomew<\/a>.<\/p>\n The long-imagined (but undiscovered) south polar continent was originally called Terra Australis<\/a>, sometimes shortened to ‘Australia’ as seen in a woodcut illustration titled Sphere of the winds, contained in an astrological textbook published in Frankfurt in 1545. Although the longer Latin phrase was better known, the shortened name Australia was used in Europe’s scholarly circles.<\/p>\n Then in the nineteenth century, the colonial authorities in Sydney<\/a> removed the Dutch name from New Holland<\/a>. Instead of inventing a new name to replace it, they took the name Australia from the south polar continent, leaving it nameless for some eighty years. During that period, geographers had to make do with clumsy phrases such as “the Antarctic Continent”. They searched for a more poetic replacement, suggesting various names such as Ultima and Antipodea. Eventually Antarctica was adopted in the 1890s.<\/p>\n Antarctica has no indigenous population, and there is no evidence that it was seen by humans until the 19th century. However, in February 1775, during his second voyage<\/a>, Captain Cook<\/a> called the existence of such a polar continent “probable” and in another copy of his journal he wrote:”[I] firmly believe it and it’s more than probable that we have seen a part of it”.<\/p>\n However, belief in the existence of a Terra Australis\u2014a vast continent in the far south of the globe to “balance” the northern lands of Europe, Asia and North Africa\u2014had prevailed since the times of Ptolemy in the 1st century AD.<\/p>\n Even in the late 17th century, after explorers had found that South America and Australia were not part of the fabled “Antarctica”, geographers believed that the continent was much larger than its actual size. Integral to the story of the origin of Antarctica’s name is that it was not named Terra Australis\u2014this name was given to Australia instead, because of the misconception that no significant landmass could exist further south. Explorer Matthew Flinders<\/a>, in particular, has been credited with popularizing the transfer of the name Terra Australis to Australia. He justified the titling of his book A Voyage to Terra Australis<\/a> (1814) by writing in the introduction:<\/p>\n There is no probability, that any other detached body of land, of nearly equal extent, will ever be found in a more southern latitude; the name Terra Australis will, therefore, remain descriptive of the geographical importance of this country and of its situation on the globe: it has antiquity to recommend it; and, having no reference to either of the two claiming nations, appears to be less objectionable than any other which could have been selected.<\/p>\n European maps continued to show this hypothesised land until Captain James Cook’s ships, HMS Resolution<\/a> and Adventure<\/a>, crossed the Antarctic Circle on 17 January 1773, in December 1773 and again in January 1774. Cook came within about 75 miles of the Antarctic coast before retreating in the face of field ice in January 1773.<\/p>\n According to various organizations (the National Science Foundation<\/a>, NASA<\/a>, the University of California, San Diego<\/a>, the Russian State Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic<\/a>, among others), ships captained by three men sighted Antarctica or its ice shelf in 1820: Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen (a captain in the Imperial Russian Navy<\/a>), Edward Bransfield<\/a> (a captain in the Royal Navy<\/a>), and Nathaniel Palmer<\/a> (a sealer from Stonington, Connecticut<\/a>).<\/p>\n The First Russian Antarctic Expedition<\/a> led by Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev on the 985-ton sloop-of-war Vostok (“East”) and the 530-ton support vessel Mirny (“Peaceful”) reached a point within 20 miles of Queen Maud’s Land<\/a> and recorded the sight of an ice shelf at 69\u00b021\u203228\u2033S 2\u00b014\u203250\u2033W, on 27 January 1820, which became known as the Fimbul ice shelf. This happened three days before Bransfield sighted land and ten months before Palmer did so in November 1820. The first documented landing on Antarctica was by the American sealer John Davis<\/a>, apparently at Hughes Bay<\/a>, near Cape Charles, in West Antarctica<\/a> on 7 February 1821, although some historians dispute this claim. The first recorded and confirmed landing was at Cape Adair in 1895 (by the Norwegian-Swedish whaling ship Antarctic<\/a>).<\/p>\n On 22 January 1840, two days after the discovery of the coast west of the Balleny Islands<\/a>, some members of the crew of the 1837\u201340 expedition of Jules Dumont d’Urville<\/a> disembarked on the highest islet of a group of rocky islands<\/a> about 4 km from Cape G\u00e9od\u00e9sie<\/a> on the coast of Ad\u00e9lie Land<\/a> where they took some mineral, algae, and animal samples, erected the French flag and claimed French sovereignty over the territory.<\/p>\n In December 1839, as part of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838\u201342<\/a> conducted by the United States Navy<\/a> (sometimes called the “Ex. Ex.”, or “the Wilkes Expedition”), an expedition sailed from Sydney, Australia, into the Antarctic Ocean, as it was then known, and reported the discovery “of an Antarctic continent west of the Balleny Islands” on 25 January 1840. That part of Antarctica was named “Wilkes Land<\/a>“, a name it retains to this day.<\/p>\n Explorer James Clark Ross<\/a> passed through what is now known as the Ross Sea<\/a> and discovered Ross Island<\/a> (both of which were named after him) in 1841. He sailed along a huge wall of ice that was later named the Ross Ice Shelf<\/a>. Mount Erebus<\/a> and Mount Terror<\/a> are named after two ships from his expedition: HMS Erebus<\/a> and Terror<\/a>. Mercator Cooper<\/a> landed in East Antarctica<\/a> on 26 January 1853.<\/p>\n During the Nimrod Expedition<\/a> led by Ernest Shackleton<\/a> in 1907, parties led by Edgeworth David<\/a> became the first to climb Mount Erebus and to reach the South Magnetic Pole<\/a>. Douglas Mawson<\/a>, who assumed the leadership of the Magnetic Pole party on their perilous return, went on to lead several expeditions until retiring in 1931. In addition, Shackleton and three other members of his expedition made several firsts in December 1908 \u2013 February 1909: they were the first humans to traverse the Ross Ice Shelf, the first to traverse the Transantarctic Mountains<\/a> (via the Beardmore Glacier<\/a>), and the first to set foot on the South Polar Plateau<\/a>.<\/p>\n An expedition<\/a> led by Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen<\/a> from the ship Fram<\/a> became the first to reach the geographic South Pole on 14 December 1911, using a route from the Bay of Whales<\/a> and up the Axel Heiberg Glacier<\/a>. One month later, the doomed Scott Expedition<\/a> reached the pole.<\/p>\n Richard E. Byrd<\/a> led several voyages to the Antarctic by plane in the 1930s and 1940s. He is credited with implementing mechanised land transport on the continent<\/a> and conducting extensive geological and biological research.The first women to set foot on Antarctica did so in the 1930s with Caroline Mikkelsen<\/a> landing on an island of Antarctica in 1935, and Ingrid Christensen<\/a> stepping onto the mainland in 1937.<\/p>\n It was not until 31 October 1956, that anyone set foot on the South Pole again; on that day a U.S. Navy group led by Rear Admiral George J. Dufek<\/a> successfully landed an aircraft there. The first women to step onto the South Pole were Pam Young, Jean Pearson, Lois Jones<\/a>, Eileen McSaveney, Kay Lindsay and Terry Tickhill in 1969.<\/p>\n The first person to sail single-handed to Antarctica was the New Zealander David Henry Lewis<\/a>, in 1972, in the 10-metre steel sloop Ice Bird.<\/p>\n On 28 April 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901<\/a>, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30<\/a>, crashed into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 people on board.<\/p>\n In the southern Hemisphere Summer of 1996\/97 B\u00f8rge Ousland<\/a> became the first human to cross Antarctica alone from coast to coast. Ousland got aid from a kite on parts of the distance. All attempted crossings, with no kites or resupplies, that have tried to go from the true continental edges, where the ice meets the sea, have failed due to the great distance that needs to be covered. For this crossing, Ousland also holds the record for the fastest unsupported journey to the South Pole taking just 34 days.<\/p>\n Positioned asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle, Antarctica is the southernmost continent and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean; alternatively, it may be considered to be surrounded by the southern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, or by the southern waters of the World Ocean<\/a>. There are a number of rivers and lakes in Antarctica, the longest river being the Onyx<\/a>. The largest lake, Vostok<\/a>, is one of the largest sub-glacial lakes in the world. Antarctica covers more than 5,400,000 square miles, making it the fifth-largest continent, about 1.3 times as large as Europe. The coastline measures 11,165 miles and is mostly characterized by ice formations<\/p>\n Antarctica is divided in two by the Transantarctic Mountains close to the neck between the Ross Sea and the Weddell Sea<\/a>. The portion west of the Weddell Sea and east of the Ross Sea is called West Antarctica and the remainder East Antarctica, because they roughly correspond to the Western and Eastern Hemispheres relative to the Greenwich meridian<\/a>.<\/p>\n About 98% of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet<\/a>, a sheet of ice averaging at least 1.0 mile thick. The continent has about 90% of the world’s ice (and thereby about 70% of the world’s fresh water). If all of this ice were melted, sea levels would rise about 200 feet. In most of the interior of the continent, precipitation is very low, down to 0.8 inches per year; in a few “blue ice<\/a>” areas precipitation is lower than mass loss by sublimation, and so the local mass balance is negative. In the dry valleys<\/a>, the same effect occurs over a rock base, leading to a desiccated landscape.<\/p>\n West Antarctica is covered by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet<\/a>. The sheet has been of recent concern because of the small possibility of its collapse. If the sheet were to break down, ocean levels would rise by several meters in a relatively geologically short period of time, perhaps a matter of centuries. Several Antarctic ice streams, which account for about 10% of the ice sheet, flow to one of the many Antarctic ice shelves<\/a>.<\/p>\n East Antarctica lies on the Indian Ocean side of the Transantarctic Mountains and comprises Coats Land<\/a>, Queen Maud Land, Enderby Land<\/a>, Mac. Robertson Land<\/a>, Wilkes Land, and Victoria Land<\/a>. All but a small portion of this region lies within the Eastern Hemisphere<\/a>. East Antarctica is largely covered by the East Antarctic Ice Sheet<\/a>.<\/p>\n Vinson Massif, the highest peak in Antarctica at 16,050 feet, is located in the Ellsworth Mountain<\/a>s. Antarctica contains many other mountains, on both the main continent and the surrounding islands. Mount Erebus on Ross Island is the world’s southernmost active volcano. Another well-known volcano is found on Deception Island<\/a>, which is famous for a giant eruption in 1970. Minor eruptions are frequent, and lava flow has been observed in recent years. Other dormant volcanoes may potentially be active. In 2004, a potentially active underwater volcano was found in the Antarctic Peninsula by American and Canadian researchers.<\/p>\n Antarctica is home to more than 70 lakes that lie at the base of the continental ice sheet. Lake Vostok, discovered beneath Russia’s Vostok Station<\/a> in 1996, is the largest of these subglacial lakes<\/a>. It was once believed that the lake had been sealed off for 500,000 to one million years, but a recent survey suggests that, every so often, there are large flows of water from one lake to another.<\/p>\n There is some evidence, in the form of ice cores drilled to about 1,300 feet) above the water line, that Lake Vostok’s waters may contain microbial life. The frozen surface of the lake shares similarities with Jupiter<\/a>‘s moon, Europa<\/a>. If life is discovered in Lake Vostok, it would strengthen the argument for the possibility of life on Europa. On 7 February 2008, a NASA team embarked on a mission to Lake Untersee<\/a>, searching for extremophiles<\/a> in its highly alkaline waters. If found, these resilient creatures could further bolster the argument for extraterrestrial life in extremely cold, methane-rich environments.<\/p>\n In September 2018, researchers at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency<\/a> released a high resolution terrain map (detail down to the size of a car, and less in some areas) of Antarctica, named the “Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica” (REMA).<\/p>\n Several governments maintain permanent manned research stations on the continent. The number of people conducting and supporting scientific research and other work on the continent and its nearby islands varies from about 1,000 in winter to about 5,000 in the summer. Many of the stations are staffed year-round, the winter-over personnel typically arriving from their home countries for a one-year assignment. An Orthodox church<\/a>\u2014Trinity Church<\/a>, opened in 2004 at the Russian Bellingshausen Station<\/a>\u2014is manned year-round by one or two priests, who are similarly rotated every year.<\/p>\n The first semi-permanent inhabitants of regions near Antarctica (areas situated south of the Antarctic Convergence<\/a>) were British and American sealers who used to spend a year or more on South Georgia<\/a>, from 1786 onward. During the whaling era, which lasted until 1966, the population of that island varied from over 1,000 in the summer (over 2,000 in some years) to some 200 in the winter. Most of the whalers were Norwegian, with an increasing proportion of Britons. The settlements included Grytviken<\/a>, Leith Harbour<\/a>, King Edward Point<\/a>, Stromness<\/a>, Husvik<\/a>, Prince Olav Harbour<\/a>, Ocean Harbour<\/a> and Godthul<\/a>. Managers and other senior officers of the whaling stations often lived together with their families. Among them was the founder of Grytviken, Captain Carl Anton Larsen<\/a>, a prominent Norwegian whaler and explorer who, along with his family, adopted British citizenship in 1910.<\/p>\n The first child born in the southern polar region was Norwegian girl Solveig Gunbj\u00f8rg Jacobsen<\/a>, born in Grytviken on 8 October 1913, and her birth was registered by the resident British Magistrate of South Georgia. She was a daughter of Fridthjof Jacobsen, the assistant manager of the whaling station, and Klara Olette Jacobsen. Jacobsen arrived on the island in 1904 and became the manager of Grytviken, serving from 1914 to 1921; two of his children were born on the island.<\/p>\n Emilio Marcos Palma<\/a> was the first person born south of the 60th parallel south (the continental limit according to the Antarctic Treaty), as well as the first one born on the Antarctic mainland, in 1978 at Base Esperanza<\/a>, on the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula; his parents were sent there along with seven other families by the Argentine government to determine if the continent was suitable for family life. In 1984, Juan Pablo Camacho was born at the Frei Montalva Station<\/a>, becoming the first Chilean born in Antarctica. Several bases are now home to families with children attending schools at the station. As of 2009, eleven children were born in Antarctica (south of the 60th parallel south): eight at the Argentine Esperanza Base and three at the Chilean Frei Montalva Station.<\/p>\n There is no economic activity in Antarctica at present, except for fishing off the coast and small-scale tourism, both based outside Antarctica.<\/p>\n Although coal<\/a>, hydrocarbons<\/a>, iron ore<\/a>, platinum<\/a>, copper<\/a>, chromium<\/a>, nickel<\/a>, gold<\/a> and other minerals have been found, they have not been in large enough quantities to exploit. The 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty<\/a> also restricts a struggle for resources. In 1998, a compromise agreement was reached to place an indefinite ban on mining, to be reviewed in 2048, further limiting economic development and exploitation. The primary economic activity is the capture and offshore trading of fish. Antarctic fisheries in 2000\u201301 reported landing 112,934 tonnes.<\/p>\n Small-scale “expedition tourism” has existed since 1957 and is currently subject to Antarctic Treaty and Environmental Protocol provisions, but in effect self-regulated by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO).<\/a> Not all vessels associated with Antarctic tourism are members of IAATO, but IAATO members account for 95% of the tourist activity. Travel is largely by small or medium ship, focusing on specific scenic locations with accessible concentrations of iconic wildlife. A total of 37,506 tourists visited during the 2006\u201307 Austral summer with nearly all of them coming from commercial ships; 38,478 were recorded in 2015\u201316.<\/p>\n There has been some concern over the potential adverse environmental and ecosystem effects caused by the influx of visitors. Some environmentalists and scientists have made a call for stricter regulations for ships and a tourism quota. The primary response by Antarctic Treaty Parties has been to develop, through their Committee for Environmental Protection and in partnership with IAATO, “site use guidelines” setting landing limits and closed or restricted zones on the more frequently visited sites. Antarctic sightseeing flights (which did not land) operated out of Australia and New Zealand until the fatal crash of Air New Zealand Flight 901 in 1979 on Mount Erebus, which killed all 257 aboard. Qantas<\/a> resumed commercial overflights to Antarctica from Australia in the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n About thirty countries maintain about seventy research stations (40 year-round or permanent, and 30 summer-only) in Antarctica.<\/p>\n The ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 “AQ”<\/a> is assigned to the entire continent regardless of jurisdiction.\u00a0 Different country calling codes and currencies are used for different settlements, depending on the administrating country. The Antarctican dollar, a souvenir item sold in the United States and Canada, is not legal tender.<\/p>\n Prior to 2002, Antarctica had no flag as the condominium that governs the continent had not yet formally selected one even though a particular design was in widespread use. The consultative members of the Antarctic Treaty System<\/a> officially adopted a flag and emblem in 2002, which is now the official symbol of the treaty system.\u00a0 Several designs for representing the continent have also been proposed.<\/p>\n The Graham Bartram<\/a> design uses the flag of the United Nations as its model. A plain white map of the continent on a blue background symbolizes neutrality (Bartram was well aware of the overlapping territorial claims of the United Kingdom<\/a>, Chile<\/a>, and Argentina<\/a> when he designed the flag). This flag was actually flown on the Antarctic continent for the first time in 2002, when Ted Kaye (then editor of Raven, the scholarly journal of the North American Vexillological Association<\/a>) took several full-size flags in the Bartram design on an Antarctic cruise. The bases of Brazil, Ukraine, and the UK all flew it from their flagpoles, making its raising “official”. He presented a paper (“Flags Over Antarctica”) which described the first flying of the Bartram design over Antarctica in Stockholm in 2003, at the 20th International Congress of Vexillology<\/a>. The Graham Bartram design is used for the “Flag for Antarctica” Emoji on all supported platforms.<\/p>\n![\"Antarctica](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Antarctica-on-the-Globe-300x300.png\" "\\"\\"")
Etymology:<\/h2>\n
![\"Adelie](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Adelie-Penguins-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
History:<\/h2>\n
![\"Terra](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Terra-Australis-300x207.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"First](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/First-Russian-Antarctic-Expedition-1819-1821-243x300.png\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Discovery](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Discovery-and-claim-of-French-sovereignty-over-Ad\u00e9lie-Land-by-Jules-Dumont-dUrville-in-1840.-300x222.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Nimrod](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Nimrod-Expedition-300x223.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Roald](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Roald-Amundsen-at-South-Pole-1911-300x198.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"B\u00f8rge](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/B\u00f8rge-Ousland-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Geography:<\/h2>\n
![\"Map](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Map-of-Antarctica-300x300.png\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Mount](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Mount-Erebus-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Population:<\/h2>\n
![\"Bellingshausen](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Bellingshausen-Station-Trinity-Church-300x225.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Economy:<\/h2>\n
![\"Tourists](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Tourists-in-Antarctica-300x141.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Flag of Antarctica:<\/h2>\n
![\"Antarctic](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Antarctic-Treaty-Flag-300x200.png\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Graham](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Graham-Bartram-Design-300x200.png\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Whitney](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/06\/Whitney-Smith-Design-300x200.png\" "\\"\\"")