Antartica Hotels

Antartica Hotels

Hotels in Antarctica are often required for tourist who need accommodation on the continent. Some may want to visit the area to see the famous landscapes the historic areas or to study the area. Some may want to do a science visit or to do a cultural visit. Some may want a luxury or cheap hotel. Some may want a hotel that is large or small. Some may want hotel that is high in status. Some may want a hotel that has good facilities.

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.4 million km² , it is the fifth-largest continent in area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice, which averages at least 1.6 kilometres in thickness.

On average, Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Since there is little precipitation, except at the coasts, the interior of the continent is technically the largest desert in the world. There are no permanent human residents. Only cold-adapted plants and animals survive there, including penguins, fur seals, mosses, lichen, and many types of algae.

Antarctica is divided in two by the Transantarctic Mountains close to the neck between the Ross Sea and the Weddell Sea. The portion west of the Weddell Sea and east of the Ross Sea is called Western Antarctica and the remainder Eastern Antarctica, because they roughly correspond to the Western and Eastern Hemispheres relative to the Greenwich meridian.

Centred asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle, Antarctica is the southernmost continent and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean; alternatively, it may be considered to be surrounded by the southern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans.

The three largest mountain ranges on the Antarctic continent are the Transantarctic Mountains, the West Antarctica Ranges, and the East Antarctica Ranges. The Transantarctic Mountains (abbreviated TAM) compose a mountain range in Antarctica which extend, with some interruptions, across the continent from Cape Adare in northern Victoria Land to Coats Land. These mountains serve as the division between East Antarctica and West Antarctica. They include a number of separately named mountain groups, which are often again subdivided into smaller ranges.

The mountain range stretches between the Ross Sea and the Weddell Sea the entire length of Antarctica, thence the name. With a total length of about 3,500 km, the Transantarctic Mountains are one of the longer mountain ranges on Earth. The 100–300 km wide range forms the boundary between East Antarctica and West Antarctica. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet bounds the TAM along their entire length on the Eastern Hemisphere side, while the Western Hemisphere side of the range is bounded by the Ross Sea in Victoria Land from Cape Adare to McMurdo Sound, the Ross Ice Shelf from McMurdo Sound to near the Scott Glacier, and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet beyond.

Vinson Massif is the highest mountain of Antarctica, located about 1,200 km from the South Pole. The mountain is about 21 km long and 13 km wide. At 4,892 metres the highest point is Mount Vinson, which was named in 2006 by US-ACAN. The southern end of the massif is capped by Mount Craddock although the highest point on the south side is Mount Rutford.

The massif lies in the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains, which stand above the Ronne Ice Shelf near the base of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The first semi-permanent inhabitants of regions near Antarctica (areas situated south of the Antarctic Convergence) were British and American sealers who used to spend a year or more on South Georgia, from 1786 onward. During the whaling era, which lasted until 1966, the population of that island varied from over 1,000 in the summer (over 2,000 in some years) to some 200 in the winter. Most of the whalers were Norwegian, with an increasing proportion of Britons. The settlements included Grytviken, Leith Harbour, King Edward Point, Stromness, Husvik, Prince Olav Harbour, Ocean Harbour and Godthul. Managers and other senior officers of the whaling stations often lived together with their families. Among them was the founder of Grytviken, Captain Carl Anton Larsen, a prominent Norwegian whaler and explorer who, along with his family, adopted British citizenship in 1910.

The Ellsworth Mountains are the highest mountain ranges in Antarctica, forming a 360 km long and 48 km wide chain of mountains in a north to south configuration on the western margin of the Ronne Ice Shelf.

Geographic regions ; Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica ecozone, Eastern Antarctica, Extreme points of the Antarctic, List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands, McMurdo Sound, RossSea, Weddell Sea