Pole of inaccessibility - Definition

The pole of inaccessibility marks a location that is the most challenging to reach owing to its remoteness from geographical features which could provide access. The term is of interest mostly to explorers and conspiracy theorists.

• Northern Pole of Inaccessibility (84°03' N 174°51' W). Located on the Arctic Ocean pack ice at a distance farthest from any land mass. It is 411 statute miles (661 km) from the North Pole, 903 miles (1453 km) north of Barrow, Alaska, and equidistant from the closest landmasses, Ellesmere Island and Franz-Josef Land 680 miles (1094 km) away. It was reached by Sir Hubert Wilkins in 1927 by airplane. Due to the constant motion of the pack ice, no permanent structure exists at the pole.

• Southern Pole of Inaccessibility (85°50' S, 65°47' E). A spot on the Antarctic continent at a point most distant from the surrounding ocean. It is located 288 statute miles (463 km) from the South Pole. The surface elevation is 12,198 feet (3,718 meters). It was reached in 1957 by a Soviet Antarctic Expedition for International Geophysical Year research work. The station was named Sovetskaya. Today a building still remains at this site, marked by a statue of Vladimir Lenin, and is protected as a historical site.

• Pacific Pole of Inaccessibility, also called Point Nemo (47°30' S, 120° W) is the place in the ocean that is farthest from land. It lies in the South Pacific Ocean, 2688 km (1670 mi or 1451 NM) from the nearest lands: Ducie Island (part of the Pitcairn Islands) in the north, Motu Nui (part of the Easter Islands) in the north-east, and Maher Island (off the coast of Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica) in the south. Chatham Island lies further west, and Southern Chile in the east.

• Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility (46°17' N, 86°40' E) the place on land that is farthest from the ocean. It lies in northern China and is 2645 km (1645 mi) from the nearest coastline. It is located approximately 320 km (200 mi) from the city of Urumqi, in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, in the Dzoosotoyn Elisen Desert. It is sheer coincidence that this pole and the Pacific pole have about the same "radius".

See also

• pole
• North Pole
• South Pole
• Extreme points of the world

External link

• Point Nemo (http://www.geocuriosa.com/pointnemo/index.html)