Situated in the South Pole and considered one of the coldest places on Earth, Antarctica has several interesting and unknown geographical facts about itself. it was not until the year 1840 that whether Antarctica was just a mass of ice or had land underneath was determined and was referred to as Terra Australis until then. The land is covered by over 2200 meters thick ice sheet.

Here are some very interesting facts about Antarctica:

• The name Antarctica literally translates into a Greek word meaning “opposite the bear”. It was the Greeks who had named the North Pole after Ursa Major constellation as ‘Arktikos’ and hence the name for the South Pole.
• This is one continent that has no country or government ownership in spite of the claims made by countries like UK, Australia, Argentina and USA. In order to preserve Antarctica as a land of natural reserves, in 1959 the Antarctic treaty was drafted and was aimed at maintaining peace and use Antarctica primarily for scientific research. 48 nations all over the world signed this Treaty.
• Antarctica has one active volcano, and the only one which is known as Mount Erebus.
• A comparison of the sizes of the Arctic and the Antarctic reveals that the latter is about eight times bigger than the Arctic.
• The first person to be born in Antarctica was Emilio Marcos of Argentinian origin in the year 1978 while the first person who was buried was Nicolai Hansen, a Norwegian zoologist in 1899.
• It is estimated that of global warming strikes severely causing all of the icebergs in Antarctica to melt, the sea level all over the world would rise by almost 200 feet.
• Antarctica is not only the coldest place on Earth with temperatures going as low as -58 degrees on average, it is also the driest place on earth; it has not rained in about 2 million years.
• In spite of being the driest part on Earth, about 70% of the Earth’s water is contained in Antarctica alone in the form of solid ice.
• Scientists over the years have collected long cylindrical samples of ice from the continent that reveals much about Earth’s climate that dates back to as much as 10,000 years.
• The only human inhabitation in Antarctica is that by visiting scientists doing geological and environmental research.
• Antarctica is the only place on earth that follows no time zone. Scientists living there follow the time of their own country or go by the time of the supply line responsible for bringing in food and research equipment.
• NASA conducted land testing on the surface of Antarctica because of the close resemblance of the surface of Mars to Antarctica.
• Many meteorites have crashed on the continent and since the year 1970 around 10,000 or even more meteorites have been found, some of them dating back as far as 700,000 years. They remain well preserved due to the quick coverage of ice soon after they land remaining intact for years.
• Antarctica has about 17 species of Penguins.

Tourism is numbered on this desert land and scientists are striving to keep its flora and fauna intact taking environmental concerns into account.