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Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean ), it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe, and has an area of 14,200,000 km 2 (5,500,000 sq mi).
Antarctica lies concentrically around the South Pole, its landmass almost wholly covered by a vast ice sheet averaging 6,500 ft (2,000 m) thick. It is divided into two subcontinents: East Antarctica, consisting mainly of a high, ice-covered plateau, and West Antarctica, consisting largely of an archipelago of mountainous islands covered with ice.
Physical geography The land Geologic record Antarctica and continental drift. The geologic evolution of Antarctica has followed a course similar to that of the other southern continents. The earliest chapters in Antarctica’s rather fragmentary record extend far back, perhaps as much as 3 billion years, into early Precambrian time.
Geography. An October 2006 NASA satellite image of the Antarctic without its periphery of unattached sea ice. Location of the Antarctic on a map of the Earth. As defined by the Antarctic Treaty System, the Antarctic region is everything south of the 60°S latitude.
Most of Antarctica is south of the Antarctic Circle, with the exception of parts of the East Antarctic coastline and the Antarctic Peninsula which extends northwards from West Antarctica to about 63°S. Islands and ice shelves.
The geography of Antarctica is dominated by its south polar location and, thus, by ice. The Antarctic continent, located in the Earth 's southern hemisphere, is centered asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle.
The Southern Ocean connects the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. The Antarctic circumpolar current circles from west to east around Antarctica. It is the largest current in the world.
