Antarctica

Antarctica has no countries at all. Nobody lives there permanently — only scientists, who come for a season and then go home again.

A continent made of ice

Antarctica is about 14 million square kilometres — bigger than Europe — and almost all of it is buried under an ice sheet that reaches close to five kilometres thick in places. Under that ice there are mountains, valleys and even lakes of liquid water, held there by the weight pressing down from above.

It is the coldest place on the planet. The lowest air temperature ever measured at the surface of the Earth, −89.2 °C, was recorded at the Russian station Vostok on 21 July 1983. It is also, strangely, a desert: so little snow falls each year that by the usual definition the interior is drier than the Sahara.

Nobody owns it. The Antarctic Treaty, signed in 1959 and in force since 1961, sets the whole continent aside for peaceful science and puts every territorial claim on hold. The people there are researchers who come for a season, so the population changes with the time of year and nobody is born a citizen of Antarctica.

How many continents are there?

There is no single right answer, which surprises most people. Schools in Britain, Australia and much of Asia teach seven continents, splitting North and South America. Schools in France, Italy, Spain and most of Latin America teach six and keep the Americas together. Some teach five, counting only the inhabited ones. The land has not moved; only the way people group it has.

This site uses six and keeps the Americas as one, because that is how the dataset behind these pages groups countries. Antarctica is one of those six. If you were taught a different number at school, you were not taught the wrong thing — you were taught a different convention.

Where a continent ends is just as much a decision. Europe and Asia sit on one unbroken piece of land, and the line between them was drawn by people, along the Ural mountains, rather than by any sea. That is why Russia and Turkey appear in lists for both.

Questions children ask

How many countries are in Antarctica?

None. Antarctica is governed by an international treaty and belongs to no country.

What is the biggest country in Antarctica?

There are no countries in Antarctica.