King Edward VII Land or King Edward VII Peninsula is a large,

ice Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally oc ...

-covered

peninsula A peninsula is a landform that extends from a mainland and is only connected to land on one side. Peninsulas exist on each continent. The largest peninsula in the world is the Arabian Peninsula. Etymology The word ''peninsula'' derives , . T ...

which forms the northwestern extremity of

Marie Byrd Land Marie Byrd Land (MBL) is an unclaimed region of Antarctica. With an area of , it is the largest unclaimed territory on Earth. It was named after the wife of American naval officer Richard E. Byrd, who explored the region in the early 20th centu ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

. The peninsula projects into the

Ross Sea The Ross Sea is a deep bay of the Southern Ocean in Antarctica, between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land and within the Ross Embayment, and is the southernmost sea on Earth. It derives its name from the British explorer James Clark Ross who ...

between

Sulzberger Bay Sulzberger Bay () is a bay indenting the front of the Sulzberger Ice Shelf between Fisher Island and Vollmer Island, along the coast of Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. Location Sulzberger Bay is on the Southern Ocean coast of Marie Byrd Land. ...

and the northeast corner of the

Ross Ice Shelf The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica (, an area of roughly and about across: about the size of France). It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than long, and between high ...

, and forms part of the

Ross Dependency The Ross Dependency is a region of Antarctica defined by a circular sector, sector originating at the South Pole, passing along longitudes 160th meridian east, 160° east to 150th meridian west, 150° west, and terminating at latitude 60th para ...

. Edward VII Peninsula is defined by the

on the southwest, Okuma Bay on the west, and to the east by

and the

Saunders Coast Saunders Coast () is the portion of the coast of Marie Byrd Land between Cape Colbeck and Brennan Point, or between Shirase Coast in the west and Ruppert Coast in the east. It stretches from 158°01'W to 146°31'W. The portion west of 150°W is ...

, all essentially on the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the world ocean, generally taken to be south of 60th parallel south, 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is the seco ...

. The northwest extremity of the peninsula is

Cape Colbeck Cape Colbeck is a prominent ice-covered cape which forms the northwestern extremity of the Edward VII Peninsula and Marie Byrd Land in Antarctica. It was discovered in January 1902 by the British National Antarctic Expedition and named for Capta ...

. Edward VII Peninsula is located at . The western coast is

Shirase Coast Shirase Coast () is the north segment of the relatively ill-defined coast along the east side of Ross Ice Shelf and Ross Sea, lying between the north end of Siple Coast (about ) and Cape Colbeck. Named by NZ-APC in 1961 after Lieutenant No ...

. In the north and east the

Swinburne Ice Shelf Sulzberger Bay () is a bay indenting the front of the Sulzberger Ice Shelf between Fisher Island and Vollmer Island, along the coast of Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. Location Sulzberger Bay is on the Southern Ocean coast of Marie Byrd Land. ...

is located. Edward VII Peninsula was discovered on 30 January 1902 by the

British National Antarctic Expedition The ''Discovery'' Expedition of 1901–1904, known officially as the British National Antarctic Expedition, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since the voyage of James Clark Ross sixty years earlier (1839–1 ...

(BrNAE) (1901–1904) under

Robert Falcon Scott Captain Robert Falcon Scott (6 June 1868 – ) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–04 and the Terra Nova Expedition ...

, who named it King Edward VII Land for

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Edward VII of the United Kingdom Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and ...

. The coastline was further explored by the

Nimrod Expedition The ''Nimrod'' Expedition of 1907–1909, otherwise known as the British Antarctic Expedition, was the first of three expeditions to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton and his second time to the Continent. Its main target, among a range of ...

under

Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarcti ...

in 1908–09, and the first landfall was made by a party of the

Japanese Antarctic Expedition The Japanese Antarctic Expedition of 1910–12, in the ship '' Kainan Maru'', was the first such expedition by a non-European nation. It was concurrent with two major Antarctic endeavours led respectively by Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott ...

led by

Shirase Nobu was a Japanese army officer and explorer. He led the first Japanese Antarctic Expedition, 1910–12, which reached a southern latitude of 80°5′, and made the first landing on the coast of King Edward VII Land. Shirase had harboured polar a ...

in 1912. The region was renamed "Edward VII Peninsula" after the peninsular character of the region was determined by exploration conducted by the

Byrd Antarctic Expedition Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957) was an United States Navy, American naval officer, and pioneering aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics. Aircraft flights in which he served as a navigator and e ...

(1933–1935) and the

United States Antarctic Service The United States Antarctic Program (or USAP; formerly known as the United States Antarctic Research Program or USARP and the United States Antarctic Service or USAS) is an organization of the United States government which has a presence in the ...

(USAS) Expedition (1939–1941). Most of the peninsula is within the

, claimed by

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

(see

Territorial claims of Antarctica Seven sovereign states – Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom – have made eight territorial claims in Antarctica. These countries have tended to place their Antarctic scientific observation and stud ...

Gallery

Image:King-Edward-VII-Land-Stamp.gif, New Zealand stamp overprinted for use at the British base

References

Peninsulas of the Ross Dependency {{RossDependency-geo-stub

Gallery

See also

References