BobRingReflections

  This article is about the history of Antarctica.   My previous articles on the history of various places in the world, and the history of maps, showed me that I knew virtually nothing about Antarctica.   It’s time to correct that. Map of the southern hemisphere showing Antarctica in relation to the closest other continents.     My primary source for this article is Antarctica / History, Animals & Facts / Britannica , supplemented with numerous other online sources. Natural Landscape Antarctica is the world’s fifth largest and southernmost continent.   It is also the world’s highest, driest, windiest, coldest, and iciest continent. Antarctica is about 5.5 million square miles in size, and thick ice covers about 98 percent of the land.     The average elevation of Antarctica is about 7,200 feet, with the highest peak, Mount Vinson, in the Ellsworth Mountains, at 16,050 feet.   The continent is divided into East Antarctica (which is largely composed of a high ice-covered pla