Antarctic Peninsula

The Antarctic Peninsula is the northernmost part of the mainland of Antarctica. At the surface, it is the biggest, most prominent peninsula in Antarctica as it extends 1300 km from a line between Cape Adams (Weddell Sea) and a point on the mainland south of Eklund Islands. Beneath the ice sheet covering the Antarctic Peninsula, it consists of a string of bedrock islands that are separated by deep channels whose bottoms lie at depths considerably below current sea level and are joined together by a grounded ice sheet. Tierra del Fuego, the southern most tip of South America, lies only about 1000 km away across the Drake Passage.

The Antarctic Peninsula is currently dotted with numerous research stations and has multiple claims of sovereignty. The peninsula forms part of disputed and overlapping claims by Argentina, Chile and the United Kingdom. None of these claims have international recognition and the respective countries do not currently actively pursue enforcement.