This article lists extreme locations on Earth that hold geographical records or are otherwise known for their geophysical or meteorological superlatives. All of these locations are Earth-wide extremes; extremes of individual continents or countries are not listed.
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These are the longest straight lines [c] that can be drawn between any two points on the surface of the Earth and remain exclusively over land or water; the points need not lie on the same line of latitude or longitude.
As distinct from geodesic lines, which appear straight only when projected onto the spheroidal surface of the Earth (i.e. arcs of great circles), straight lines passing through the Earth's centre can be constructed through the interior of the Earth between almost any two points on the surface of the Earth (some extreme topographical situations such as overhanging cliffs being the rare exceptions[ citation needed ]). A line projected from the summit of Cayambe in Ecuador (see highest points) through the axial centre of the Earth to its antipode on the island of Sumatra results in the longest diameter that can be produced anywhere through the Earth. As the variable circumference of the Earth approaches 40,000 kilometres (25,000 mi), such a maximum "diameter" or "antipodal" line would be on the order of 13,000 kilometres (8,000 mi) long.[ citation needed ]
Continent | Elevation (height above/below sea level) A | Air temperature (recorded) [39] B | |||
Highest | Lowest | Highest | Lowest | ||
Africa | 5,893 m (19,334 feet) Kilimanjaro, Tanzania [40] | −155 m (−509 feet) Lake Assal, Djibouti [41] | 55 °C (131 °F) (disputed [42] ) Kebili, French Tunisia 7 July 1931 C | −23.9 °C (−11.0 °F) Ifrane, French Morocco 11 February 1935 | |
Antarctica | 4,892 m (16,050 feet) Vinson Massif [43] | −50 m (−164 feet) [44] Deep Lake, Vestfold Hills (compare the deepest ice section below) | 20.75 °C (69.35 °F) Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station 9 February 2020 | −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) Vostok Station 21 July 1983 | |
Asia | 8,848.86 m (29,032 feet) Mount Everest, Tibet–Nepal Border [45] | −424 m (−1,391 feet) Dead Sea, Israel–Jordan–Palestine [46] | 54 °C (129 °F) Tirat Zvi, Israel (then in the British Mandate of Palestine) 21 June 1942 | −67.7 °C (−89.9 °F) Measured Oymyakon, Siberia, Soviet Union 6 February 1933 [47] [48] | |
54 °C (129 °F) Ahvaz Airport, Iran 29 June 2017 [49] | −71.2 °C (−96.2 °F) Extrapolated Oymyakon, Siberia, Soviet Union 26 January 1926 [50] | ||||
Europe | 5,642 m (18,510 feet) Mount Elbrus, Russian Federation [51] | −28 m (−92 feet) Caspian Sea shore, Russian Federation [52] | 48.8 °C | −58.1 °C (−72.6 °F) Ust-Shchuger, Soviet Union 31 December 1978 | |
North America | 6,190.5 m (20,310 feet) Denali, Alaska, United States [53] | −85 m (−279 feet) Badwater Basin, California, United States [54] | 56.7 °C (134.1 °F) Furnace Creek (then named Greenland Ranch), Death Valley, California, United States 10 July 1913 C ( disputed while still official, but up to 54.4 °C (129.9 °F) [42] has also been recorded there in 2020 and 2021, not yet verified by WMO; and 54.0 °C (129.2 °F) which is verified.) | -69.6 °C (-93.3 °F) Summit Camp, Greenland | |
Oceania | 4,884 m (16,024 feet) Puncak Jaya (Carstensz Pyramid), Indonesia (compare Mount Wilhelm, Aoraki / Mount Cook and Mount Kosciuszko) [55] | −15 m (−49 feet) Lake Eyre, South Australia, Australia [56] | 50.7 °C (123.3 °F) Oodnadatta, South Australia, Australia 2 January 1960 G 50.7 °C (123.3 °F) 13 January 2022 [57] | −25.6 °C (−14.1 °F) Ranfurly, Otago, New Zealand 17 July 1903 | |
South America | 6,962 m (22,841 feet) Aconcagua, Mendoza, Argentina [58] | −105 m (−344 feet) Laguna del Carbón, Argentina [59] | 48.9 °C (120.0 °F) Rivadavia, Salta Province, Argentina 11 December 1905 | −32.8 °C (−27.0 °F) Sarmiento, Chubut Province, Argentina 1 June 1907 | |
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In contrast to places with the highest density of life, like terrestrial [66] tropical regions, and beside local extreme conditions, which might only be overcome by extremophiles, there are areas of extreme low amounts of life.
Next to terrestrial lifeless areas like the Antarctic desert's McMurdo Dry Valleys and its Don Juan Pond, the most lifeless area in the ocean studied (other than the more general dead zones) is the South Pacific Gyre, [67] corresponding to the oceanic pole of inaccessibility.
The oceanic pole of inaccessibility is also the antipodal area of the human center of population which lies today around southern Central Asia. Similarly the world's economic center of gravity has been drifting since antiquity from Central Asia to Northern Europe and contemporarily back to Central Asia. [68] The related centre of gravity of the worlds carbon emission has shifted from Britain during the Industrial Revolution to the Atlantic, back again and contemporarily into Central Asia. [69]
Each continent has its own continental pole of inaccessibility, defined as the place on the continent that is farthest from any ocean. Similarly, each ocean has its own oceanic pole of inaccessibility, defined as the place in the ocean that is farthest from any land.
The pairs of cities (with a population over 100,000) with the greatest distance between them (antipodes) are: [78]
The pair of airports with scheduled flights having the greatest distance between them are Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II International Airport, which serves Palembang, Indonesia, and Benito Salas Airport, which serves Neiva, Colombia, located about 10,819 nautical miles (20,037 km) apart. [89] See longest flights for the longest non-stop flights.
Since the Earth is a spheroid, its centre (the core) is thousands of kilometres beneath its crust. Still, there have been attempts to define various "centrepoints" on the Earth's surface.
Greatest purely vertical drop | 1,200 m (4,100 ft) Mount Thor, Auyuittuq National Park, Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada (summit elevation 1,675 m (5,495 ft)) [91] [92] | |
Greatest nearly vertical drop | 1,340 m (4,396 ft) Trango Towers, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan (summit elevation 6,286 m (20,623 ft)) | |
Greatest mountain face | 4,600 m (15,092 ft) Nanga Parbat, Rupal Face, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan | |
Greatest ocean cliff | Kermadec Trench, with cliffs around 8,000 m (26,000 ft) tall |
Deepest mine below ground level | 4,000 m (13,000 ft) Mponeng Gold Mine, Gauteng Province, South Africa |
Deepest mine below sea level | 2,733 m (8,967 ft) below sea level Kidd Mine, Ontario, Canada |
Deepest open-pit mine below ground level | 1,200 m (3,900 ft) Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah, United States |
Deepest open-pit mine below sea level | 293 m (961 ft) below sea level Tagebau Hambach, Germany |
Deepest cave (measured from the entrance) | 2,204 m (7,231 ft) Veryovkina, Arabika Massif, Abkhazia, Georgia [93] |
Deepest pitch (single vertical drop) | 1,026 m (3,366 ft) Tian Xing Cave, China [94] |
Deepest borehole | 12,261 m (40,226 ft) Kola Superdeep Borehole, Russia [95] |
Deepest borehole by depth below sea level | 11,944 m (39,186 ft) (10,685 m well at 1,259 m deep seabed) The Tiber well, Gulf of Mexico, United States [96] |
Atlantic Ocean | 8,376 m (27,480 ft) [97] Milwaukee Deep (within the Brownson Deep), Puerto Rico Trench |
Arctic Ocean | 5,550 m (18,209 ft) [98] Molloy Deep, Fram Strait |
Indian Ocean | 7,192 m (23,596 ft) [99] Sunda Trench |
Mediterranean Sea | 5,267 m (17,280 ft) Calypso Deep, Hellenic Trench |
Pacific Ocean | 10,928 m (35,853 ft) [100] Challenger Deep, Mariana Trench [101] |
Southern Ocean | 7,433.6 m (24,388 ft) [102] South Sandwich Trench (southernmost portion, at 60°28.46′S025°32.32′W / 60.47433°S 25.53867°W ) |
Ice sheets on land, but having the base below sea level. Places under ice are not considered to be on land.
Denman Subglacial Trench | −3,500 m (−11,500 ft) | Antarctica |
Trough beneath Jakobshavn Isbræ | −1,512 m (−4,961 ft) [103] | Greenland, Denmark |
Hottest inhabited place | Dallol, Ethiopia (Amharic: ዳሎል), whose annual mean temperature was recorded from 1960 to 1966 as 34.4 °C (93.9 °F). [104] The average daily maximum temperature during the same period was 41.1 °C (106.0 °F). [105] |
Coldest inhabited place | Oymyakon (Russian: Оймяко́н), a rural locality (selo) in Oymyakonsky District of the Sakha Republic, the Russian Federation, has the coldest monthly mean, with −46.4 °C (−51.5 °F) the average temperature in January, the coldest month. Eureka, Nunavut, Canada has the lowest annual mean temperature at −19.7 °C (−3.5 °F). [106] |
The South Pole and some other places in Antarctica are colder and are populated year-round, but almost everyone stays less than a year and could be considered visitors, not inhabitants. |
Temperatures measured directly on the ground may exceed air temperatures by 30 to 50 °C. [107] A ground temperature of 84 °C (183.2 °F) has been recorded in Port Sudan, Sudan. [108] A ground temperature of 93.9 °C (201 °F) was recorded in Furnace Creek, Death Valley, California, United States on 15 July 1972; this may be the highest natural ground surface temperature ever recorded. [109] The theoretical maximum possible ground surface temperature has been estimated to be between 90 and 100 °C for dry, darkish soils of low thermal conductivity. [110]
Satellite measurements of ground temperature taken between 2003 and 2009, taken with the MODIS infrared spectroradiometer on the Aqua satellite, found a maximum temperature of 70.7 °C (159.3 °F), which was recorded in 2005 in the Lut Desert, Iran. The Lut Desert was also found to have the highest maximum temperature in 5 of the 7 years measured (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009). These measurements reflect averages over a large region and so are lower than the maximum point surface temperature. [107]
Satellite measurements of the surface temperature of Antarctica, taken between 1982 and 2013, found a coldest temperature of −93.2 °C (−136 °F) on 10 August 2010, at 81°48′S59°18′E / 81.8°S 59.3°E . Although this is not comparable to an air temperature, it is believed that the air temperature at this location would have been lower than the official record lowest air temperature of −89.2 °C. [111] [112]
Africa is a continent comprising 63 political territories, representing the largest of the great southward projections from the main mass of Earth's surface. Within its regular outline, it comprises an area of 30,368,609 km2 (11,725,385 sq mi), excluding adjacent islands. Its highest mountain is Kilimanjaro; its largest lake is Lake Victoria.
The Dominican Republic is a country in the West Indies that occupies the eastern five-eighths of Hispaniola. It has an area of 48,670 km2, including offshore islands. The land border shared with Haiti, which occupies the western three-eighths of the island, is 376 km long. The maximum length, east to west, is 390 km from Punta de Agua to Las Lajas, on the border with Haiti. The maximum width, north to south, is 265 km from Cape Isabela to Cape Beata. The capital, Santo Domingo, is located on the south coast.
The Faroe Islands are an island group consisting of eighteen islands between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic, about half-way between Iceland and Norway. Its coordinates are 62°N7°W. It is 1,393 square kilometres in area, and includes small lakes and rivers, but no major ones. There are 1,117 kilometres of coastline, and no land boundaries with any other country.
Greenland is located between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Canada and northwest of Iceland. The territory comprises the island of Greenland—the largest island in the world—and more than a hundred other smaller islands. Greenland has a 1.2-kilometer-long (0.75 mi) border with Canada on Hans Island. A sparse population is confined to small settlements along certain sectors of the coast. Greenland possesses the world's second-largest ice sheet.
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Magnetic North Pole.
Iceland is an island country at the confluence of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, east of Greenland and immediately south of the Arctic Circle, atop the constructive boundary of the northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The island country is the world's 18th largest in area and one most sparsely populated. It is the westernmost European country when not including Greenland and has more land covered by glaciers than continental Europe. Its total size is 103,125 km2 (39,817 sq mi) and possesses an exclusive economic zone of 751,345 km2 (290,096 sq mi).
The climate of Antarctica is the coldest on Earth. The continent is also extremely dry, averaging 166 mm (6.5 in) of precipitation per year. Snow rarely melts on most parts of the continent, and, after being compressed, becomes the glacier ice that makes up the ice sheet. Weather fronts rarely penetrate far into the continent, because of the katabatic winds. Most of Antarctica has an ice-cap climate with extremely cold and dry weather.
In geography, the antipode of any spot on Earth is the point on Earth's surface diametrically opposite to it. A pair of points antipodal to each other are situated such that a straight line connecting the two would pass through Earth's center. Antipodal points are as far away from each other as possible. The North and South Poles are antipodes of each other.
In geography, a pole of inaccessibility is the farthest location in a given landmass, sea, or other topographical feature, starting from a given boundary, relative to a given criterion. A geographical criterion of inaccessibility marks a location that is the most challenging to reach according to that criterion. Often it refers to the most distant point from the coastline, implying the farthest point into a landmass from the shore, or the farthest point into a body of water from the shore. In these cases, a pole of inaccessibility is the center of a maximally large circle that can be drawn within an area of interest only touching but not crossing a coastline. Where a coast is imprecisely defined, the pole will be similarly imprecise.
This is a list of the extreme points of Europe: the geographical points that are higher or farther north, south, east or west than any other location in Europe. Some of these positions are open to debate, as the definition of Europe is diverse.
The extreme points of Eurasia are farther north, south, east or west than any other location on the continent. Some of these locations are open to debate, owing to the diverse definitions of Europe and Asia.
This is a list of the extreme points of North America: the points that are highest and lowest, and farther north, south, east or west than any other location on the continent. Some of these points are debatable, given the varying definitions of North America.
Dome A or Dome Argus is the highest ice dome on the Antarctic Plateau, located 1,200 km (750 mi) inland. It is thought to be the coldest naturally occurring place on Earth, with temperatures believed to reach −90 to −98 °C. It is the highest ice feature in Antarctica, consisting of an ice dome or eminence 4,093 m (13,428 ft) above sea level. It is located near the center of East Antarctica, approximately midway between the enormous head of Lambert Glacier and the geographic South Pole, within the Australian claim.
Montenegro is a small, mountainous country in Southeast Europe. It borders Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and the Adriatic Sea. While being a small country at 13,812 km2 (5,333 sq mi), it is very diverse regarding the terrain configuration. Montenegro has 50 peaks of over 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in altitude.
This is a list of extreme points in Antarctica.
The equator is a circle of latitude that divides a spheroid, such as Earth, into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. On Earth, the Equator is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, about 40,075 km (24,901 mi) in circumference, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can also be used for any other celestial body that is roughly spherical.
Poland is a country that extends across the North European Plain from the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south to the sandy beaches of the Baltic Sea in the north. Poland is the fifth-most populous country of the European Union and the ninth-largest country in Europe by area. The territory of Poland covers approximately 312,696 km2 (120,733 sq mi), of which 98.52% is land and 1.48% is water. The Polish coastline was estimated at 770 km (478 mi) in length. Poland's highest point is Rysy, at 2,500 m (8,202 ft).
The South Pole–Queen Maud Land Traverse (SPQMLT) was a three-part scientific exploration of Antarctica undertaken by the United States in the 1960s. The three parts, referred to individually as South Pole–Queen Maud Land Traverse I, II, and III, traveled a zigzag route across nearly 4200 km of the Antarctic Plateau in the austral summers of 1964–1965, 1965–1966, and 1967–1968. The participants included scientists from Belgium, Norway, and the United States. Their objectives included determining the thickness of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, the elevation and slope of its surface, the rate of ice accumulation, and the subglacial topography. Other objectives included measuring the density and temperature of the ice at depth, measuring the geomagnetic field and gravity, and obtaining snow samples and ice cores.
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