Antarctica, centered roughly on the South Pole, is the fifth-largest continent and almost all of its area is covered with a vast ice sheet generating the coldest climate on Earth. It is surrounded by the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans and its area, about 5,500,000 square miles (14,245,000 square kilometers), including 633,200 square miles (1,640,000 square kilometers) of floating ice shelves, is more than one and a half times as large as the United States. Today there is not a live tree or bush on the entire continent but there are indications that at one time Antarctica was densely covered with forests of pine, palm, and fernlike trees.
No people are native to Antarctica and there are no permanent residents. The summer population of Antarctica is several thousand, but only a few hundred scientists and support personnel stay during the winter.
Web Sites
- Antarctica Online
- The National Science Foundation
- Cold Regions Bibliography Project: American Geological Institute
- Open Directory Project
- CountryReports.org
- The University of Texas
- Library of Congress
- World Atlas Travel.com
Maps:
Catalog
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Databases
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