Pole of inaccessibility

In geography, a pole of inaccessibility is the farthest (or the most difficult to reach) 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.

Northern pole of inaccessibility

The northern pole of inaccessibility, sometimes known as the Arctic pole, is located on the Arctic Ocean pack ice at a distance farthest from any landmass. The original position was wrongly believed to lie at 84°3′N 174°51′W. It is not clear who first defined this point, but it may have been Sir Hubert Wilkins, who wished to traverse the Arctic Ocean by aircraft in 1927. He was finally successful in 1928. In 1968 Sir Wally Herbert came very close to reaching what was then considered to be the position by dogsled, but by his own account, Across the Top of the World, did not make it due to the flow of sea ice. In 1986, an expedition of Soviet polar scientists led by Dmitry Shparo claimed to reach the original position by foot during a polar night. In 2005, explorer Jim McNeill asked scientists from The National Snow and Ice Data Center and Scott Polar Research Institute to re-establish the position using modern GPS and satellite technology. This was published as a paper in the Polar Record, Cambridge University Press in 2013. McNeill launched his own, unsuccessful attempt to reach the new position in 2006, while measuring the depth of sea-ice for NASA. In 2010 he and his Ice Warrior team were thwarted again by the poor condition of the sea ice. The new position lies at 85°48′N 176°9′W, 1,008 kilometres (626 mi) from the three closest landmasses: Henrietta Island in the De Long Islands, at Arctic Cape on Severnaya Zemlya, and on Ellesmere Island. It is over 200 kilometres (120 mi) from the originally accepted position. Due to constant motion of the pack ice, no permanent structure can exist at this pole. On 12 September 2024, the French icebreaking cruise ship Le Commandant Charcot became the first ship to reach the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility.

Southern pole of inaccessibility

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