King_George_Island King_George_Island

King George Island - Definition and Overview

King George Island is the largest of the South Shetland Islands, situated at 62° 23' South, 58° 67' West, 120 kilometers off the coast of Antarctica in the Southern Ocean.

A map of King George Island
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A map of King George Island

The island was discovered by the British explorer William Smith in 1819. It is approximately 95 kilomters long and 25 kilometers wide with a land area of 2200 square kilometers. Over 60% of the islands surface is permenantly glaciated. In 1821, 11 men of the sealing vessel Lord Melville survived the Antarctic winter on the island, the first men to do so.

The South Korean Antarctic base on King George Island
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The South Korean Antarctic base on King George Island

The coastal areas of the island are home to a comparartively diverse selection of vegetation and animal life, including Elephant, Weddell and Leopard seals, and Chinstrap and Gentoo penguins. Human habitation of King George Island is limited to research stations belonging to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, South Korea, Poland, Russia, and Uruguay are located on King George Island. Most of these stations are permenantly manned, carring out research into area as diverse as Biology, Ecology, Geology, and Paleontology.

A small amount of specialised tourist activity also takes place during summer.

See also


Example Usage of George

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