Pole of inaccessibility
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 a geographic construct, not an actual physical phenomenon, and is of interest mostly to
explorers and
conspiracy theorists.
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Northern Pole of Inaccessibility (). Located on the
Arctic Ocean pack ice at a distance farthest from any land mass. It is 661 km (411 statute
miles) from the
North Pole, 1453 km (903 mi) north of
Barrow, Alaska, and equidistant from the closest landmasses,
Ellesmere Island and
Franz-Josef Land, 1094 km (680 mi) away. It was reached by Sir
Hubert Wilkins in
1927 by
aircraft. Due to the constant motion of the pack ice, no permanent structure exists at the pole.
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Southern Pole of Inaccessibility (). A spot on
Antarctica at a point most distant from the surrounding ocean. It is located 463 km (288 statute miles) from the
South Pole. The surface
elevation is 3718 m (12,198 ft). It was reached in
1958 by a
Soviet Antarctic Expedition for
International Geophysical Year research work: see
Pole of inaccessibility (Antarctic research station). Today a building still remains at this site, marked by a statue of
Vladimir Lenin, and is protected as a historical site. Note that there are several possible definitions [
1], depending on whether the "coast" is measured to the grounding line, or to the ice shelves.
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Pacific Pole of Inaccessibility, also called
Point Nemo () 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.
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Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility () 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
Ürümqi, in the
Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, in the
Dzoosotoyn Elisen Desert. The precise geographical point was reached on
27 June,
1986 by
Nicholas Crane and
Dr Richard Crane.
Coincidentally, the Eurasian and the Pacific poles have approximately the same radius.
*
pole*
North Pole*
South Pole*
Extreme points of the world*
Point Nemo
