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Antarctica Introduction 2015
https://photius.com/world_fact_book_2015/antarctica/antarctica_introduction.html
SOURCE: 2015 CIA WORLD FACTBOOK AND OTHER SOURCES











Antarctica Introduction 2015
SOURCE: 2015 CIA WORLD FACTBOOK AND OTHER SOURCES


Page last updated on June 19, 2014

Background:
Speculation over the existence of a "southern land" was not confirmed until the early 1820s when British and American commercial operators and British and Russian national expeditions began exploring the Antarctic Peninsula region and other areas south of the Antarctic Circle. Not until 1840 was it established that Antarctica was indeed a continent and not just a group of islands or an area of ocean. Several exploration "firsts" were achieved in the early 20th century, but generally the area saw little human activity. Following World War II, however, the continent experienced an upsurge in scientific research. A number of countries have set up a range of year-round and seasonal stations, camps, and refuges to support scientific research in Antarctica. Seven have made territorial claims, but not all countries recognize these claims. In order to form a legal framework for the activities of nations on the continent, an Antarctic Treaty was negotiated that neither denies nor gives recognition to existing territorial claims; signed in 1959, it entered into force in 1961.


NOTE: 1) The information regarding Antarctica on this page is re-published from the 2015 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Antarctica Introduction 2015 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Antarctica Introduction 2015 should be addressed to the CIA.
2) The rank that you see is the CIA reported rank, which may habe the following issues:
  a) They assign increasing rank number, alphabetically for countries with the same value of the ranked item, whereas we assign them the same rank.
  b) The CIA sometimes assignes counterintuitive ranks. For example, it assigns unemployment rates in increasing order, whereas we rank them in decreasing order




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