Amazing Antarctica

1Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, and driest continent on Earth. It's the fifth largest of the
world's seven continents. A layer of ice almost 5 kilometers (3 miles) thick covers the island in
some places. In fact, 90% of the world's ice is in Antarctica.

2The weather in Antarctica is the coldest on Earth. The lowest temperature ever recorded, -
89.2 degrees Celsius (-128.6 degrees Fahrenheit), was in 1983 at the Vostok Station, an old
Russian research base. At the South Pole, the temperature varies from -35 degrees Celsius (-
31 degrees Fahrenheit) in the midsummer to -70 degrees Celsius (-94 degrees Fahrenheit) in
the midwinter.

3Antarctica is not only the world's coldest continent but also the driest place on Earth.
Sometimes called the world's largest desert, it gets about the same amount of rain each year
as the Sahara. Antarctic winds are the strongest on the planet, reaching up to 320 kilometers
(199 miles) per hour.

4Located at the South Pole, Antarctica is the farthest south of any continent. The South Pole
gets six months of nonstop daylight from September through March. Then it gets six months of
nonstop darkness. And because it's so far south, Antarctica covers the most time zones – all of
them!

5Explorers first visited Antarctica in 1821. Then in 1899, a Norwegian explorer set up a
research station on Antarctica, and for the first time, people could live there. Now there are
about 60 research bases there, set up by many different countries. The population of
Antarctica grows from about 1,000 in the winter to about 4,000 during the summer. It has the
smallest population of any continent.