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The 7th continent

When you think about Antarctica, what comes to mind?

  • freezing temperatures?
  • permanent  snow cover?
  • remoteness?
  • no people around?
  • lots of penguins?
  • irrelevant to the rest of the world?
  • I never think about it

Let's have closer look at what is often called the 7th continent!

Landform and Climate - Facts and figures

Landform

The stats according to the CIA World Handbook

Area total: 14.2 million sq km (285,000 sq km ice-free, 13.915 million sq km ice-covered) (est.)

Coastline: 17,968 km

Terrain: about 98% thick continental ice sheet and 2% barren rock, with average elevations between 2,000 and 4,000 m; mountain ranges up to nearly 5,000 m; ice-free coastal areas include parts of southern Victoria Land, Wilkes Land, the Antarctic Peninsula area, and parts of Ross Island on McMurdo Sound; glaciers form ice shelves along about half of the coastline, and floating ice shelves constitute 11% of the area of the continent

Climate

Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, and driest continent on Earth. Average annual temperature ranges from about −10°C on the coast to −60°C at the highest parts of the interior. Near the coast, the temperature can exceed +10°C in summer and fall to below −40°C in winter. Over the elevated inland, it can rise to about −30°C in summer but fall below −80°C in winter.

Wind speeds can exceed 100 km/h for days at a time. Wind gusts well over 200 km/h have been measured.

Almost all of what little precipitation there is falls as snow.

Governance of Antarctica

The Antarctic Treaty was signed in Washington, USA on 1 December 1959 by the twelve countries whose scientists had been in active research in and around Antarctica -
Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
As of 2024, the treaty recognises 58 interested parties; 29 of these have voting rights.

According to The Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty,

The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty was signed in Madrid on October 4, 1991 and entered into force in 1998. It designates Antarctica as a “natural reserve, devoted to peace and science” (Art. 2). Article 3 of the Environment Protocol sets forth basic principles applicable to human activities in Antarctica and Article 7 prohibits all activities relating to Antarctic mineral resources, except for scientific research.

See also for more information on Governance

Humans in Antarctica

Workers

According to The CIA World Factbook

56 countries have signed the 1959 Antarctic Treaty; 30 of those operate a number of seasonal-only (summer) and year-round research stations on the continent and its nearby islands; the population varies from approximately 5,000 in summer to 1,100 in winter, with about 1,000 support personnel on ships nearby.

Tourists

The Conversation recently (2025) published an article on the acceleration of Antarctic tourism.

The number of tourists heading to Antarctica has been skyrocketing. From fewer than 8,000 a year about three decades ago, nearly 125,000 tourists flocked to the icy continent in 2023–24. The trend is likely to continue in the long term.

Did you Know
Did You Know

1st December is known internationally as Antarctica Day  because it commemorates the anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959. It was signed by representatives of the twelve countries whose scientists had been actively exploring and researching in and around Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957-58.