Spanish claims (1539–1555), the first territorial claim over the lands near the South Pole. It was later incorporated into the
Governorate of Chile. De la Hoz transferred the title to the conqueror
Pedro de Valdivia in 1540. In 1555, the claim was incorporated to
Chile. This grant established, according to
Argentina and
Chile, that an
animus occupandi existed on the part of Spain in Antarctica. Spain's sovereignty claim over parts of Antarctica was, according to Chile and Argentina, internationally recognized with the
Inter caetera bull of 1493 and the
Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494. Argentina and Chile treat these treaties as legal international treaties mediated by the Catholic Church that was at that time a recognized arbiter in such matters. Each country currently has claimed a sector of the Antarctic continent that is more or less directly south of its national Antarctic-facing lands. Modern Spain has not claimed any Antarctic territory. It operates two summer research stations (
Gabriel de Castilla Base and
Juan Carlos I Base) in the
South Shetland Islands.
British (and later Australian and New Zealand) claims The United Kingdom reasserted sovereignty over the
Falkland Islands in the far
South Atlantic in 1833 and maintained a continuous presence there since. In 1908, the British government extended its territorial claim by declaring sovereignty over "
South Georgia, the
South Orkneys, the
South Shetlands, and the
(South) Sandwich Islands, and
Graham's Land, situated in the South Atlantic Ocean and on the Antarctic continent to the south of the
50th parallel of south latitude, and lying between the
20th and the
80th degrees of west longitude". All these territories were administered as
Falkland Islands Dependencies from
Stanley by the
Governor of the Falkland Islands. The claimed motivation for this declaration was what the British said was the need to regulate and tax the
whaling industry effectively. In 1917, the wording of the claim was modified, so as unambiguously to include all the territory in the sector stretching to the
South Pole (thus encompassing all the present British Antarctic Territory). The new claim covered "all islands and territories whatsoever between the 20th degree of west longitude and the
50th degree of west longitude which are situated south of the 50th parallel of south latitude; and all islands and territories whatsoever between the 50th degree of west longitude and the 80th degree of west longitude which are situated south of the
58th parallel of south latitude". In 1930, the United Kingdom claimed
Enderby Land. In 1933, a British imperial order transferred territory south of
60° S and between
meridians 160° E and
45° E to Australia as the
Australian Antarctic Territory. This followed the
British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition, led by Australian geologist and polar explorer
Douglas Mawson, establishing the territorial claim to 42% of the Antarctic during 1929–1930 and 1930–1931. Following the passing of the
Statute of Westminster in 1931, the government of the United Kingdom relinquished all control over the governments of New Zealand and Australia. This, however, had no bearing on the obligations of the governors-general of both countries in their capacity as Governors of the Antarctic territories.
Other European claims by
Jules Dumont d'Urville, in 1840 The basis for the claim to
Adélie Land by France depended on the discovery of the coastline in 1840 by the French explorer
Jules Dumont d'Urville, who named it after his wife, Adèle. He erected the French flag and took possession of the land for France on 21 January 1840 at 17:30. The British eventually decided to recognize this claim, and the border between
Adélie Land and the
Australian Antarctic Territory was fixed definitively in 1938. These developments also concerned Norwegian whaling interests which wished to avoid British taxation of
whaling stations in the Antarctic and felt concern that they would be commercially excluded from the continent. The whale-ship owner
Lars Christensen financed several expeditions to the Antarctic with the view to claiming land for Norway and to establishing stations on Norwegian territory to gain better privileges. The first expedition, led by
Nils Larsen and
Ola Olstad, landed on
Peter I Island in 1929 and claimed the island for Norway. On 6 March 1931 a Norwegian royal proclamation declared the island under Norwegian
sovereignty The 1929 expedition led by
Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen and
Finn Lützow-Holm named the continental landmass near the island as
Queen Maud Land after the Norwegian queen
Maud of Wales. The territory was explored further during the
Norvegia expedition of 1930–31. Negotiations with the British government in 1938 resulted in setting the western border of Queen Maud Land at 20°W. In 1938,
Germany dispatched the
German Antarctic Expedition, led by
Alfred Ritscher, to fly over as much of it as possible. During the expedition, Ritscher photographed an area of about from the air and dropped darts inscribed with
swastikas every . However, despite intensively surveying the land, Germany never made any formal claim or constructed any lasting bases. Hence, the German Antarctic claim, known as
New Swabia, was disputed at the time, and is currently not taken into account. On 14 January 1939, five days before the German arrival, Norway annexed Queen Maud Land In 1948, Norway and the United Kingdom agreed to limit Norway's longitudinal claims of Queen Maud Land to 20°W to 45°E, and to incorporate the Bruce Coast and
Coats Land into Norwegian territory. In 1893, when Argentina started issuing whaling, hunting and fishing licenses in Antarctic waters, the Chilean government protested and issued fishing ordinances of its own, with the goal of preventing the indiscriminate exploitation of maritime resources and their potential extinction. The Chilean Navy was tasked with stopping clandestine fishing vessels, but their presence proved ineffective. In early 1906, the Chilean government granted permits to private business ventures to settle the lands beyond the South Shetland islands, with the goal of establishing a permanent presence in the region and improving Chile's control of the area. On 10 June 1907, Argentina formally protested and asked for mutual recognition of Antarctic territories. There was work on a treaty to more concretely define territories in the region, but it was never signed. Two years before, in 1904, the Argentine government had established a permanent presence in Antarctica with the purchase of a meteorological station on
Laurie Island established in 1903 by
William S. Bruce's
Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. Bruce offered to transfer the station and instruments for the sum of 5,000
pesos, on the condition that the government committed itself to the continuation of the scientific mission. The Envoy at the British Legation in Argentina, William Haggard, also sent a note to the Argentine Foreign Minister,
José A. Terry, ratifying the terms of Bruce's proposition. Chile's government didn't completely reject Argentina's protest and negotiations ensued between both countries through most of 1906 and 1907, trying to define the borders of their respective Antarctic claims. and claimed it according to maritime law. He towed it to Deception Island, beaching it in a cove (now Telefon Cove) for repairs. The following spring, the factory ship
Gobernador Bories repaired it successfully, allowing the
Telefon to sail again under the Chilean flag. The whaling society acquired the steamship
Telefon that belonged to the Lloyds company in 1910, which had been put up for auction after the accident. Taking advantage of a European continent plunged into turmoil with the onset of the
Second World War, Chile's president, Pedro Aguirre Cerda declared the establishment of a
Chilean Antarctic Territory based on the
uti possidetis juris principle inheriting the
Spanish Governorate of Terra Australis of 1539, transferred to the
Governorate of Chile in 1555. The Chilean commission, with the
ad honorem work of Julio Escudero, set the bounds according to the
theory of polar areas, taking into account geographical, historical, legal, and diplomatic precedents, which were formalized by Decree No. 1747, enacted on November 6, 1940, and published on June 21, 1955. that led to the definition of a claim on the Antarctic mainland. Argentina published a map in 1941 showing "the Antarctic Sector in which the Argentine Republic maintains rights" between 75° W and 25° W, south of 60° S, without a formal legal claim yet. In January 1942, Argentina declared its Antarctic rights between the meridians at 25° and 68° 34' W, south of 60° S, establishing the Argentine Antarctica, according to the
theory of polar areas.On September 2, 1946, Decree No. 8944 required all the national maps to show the claimed territory of the Argentine Antarctic Sector, which was extended between the meridians at 25° and 74° west longitude (near the far east of the
South Sandwich Islands), south of 60° S by the National Antarctic Commission. The move was also motivated by concerns within the
Foreign Office about the direction of United States post-war activity in the region. A suitable cover story was the need to deny use of the area to the
Kriegsmarine, which was known to use remote islands as rendezvous points and as shelters for commerce raiders,
U-boats and supply ships. Also, in 1941, there existed a fear that Japan might attempt to seize the
Falkland Islands, either as a base or to hand them over to Argentina, thus gaining political advantage for the
Axis and denying their use to the United Kingdom. In 1943, British personnel from
HMS Carnarvon Castle removed Argentine flags from
Deception Island. The expedition was led by Lieutenant
James Marr and left the
Falkland Islands in two ships,
HMS William Scoresby (a minesweeping trawler) and
Fitzroy, on 29 January 1944. Bases were established during February near the abandoned Norwegian whaling station on
Deception Island, where the
Union Flag was hoisted in place of Argentine flags, and at
Port Lockroy (on 11 February) on the coast of
Graham Land. A further base was founded at
Hope Bay on 13 February 1945, after a failed attempt to unload stores on 7 February 1944. Symbols of British sovereignty, including
post offices, signposts and
plaques were also constructed and
postage stamps were issued.
Operation Tabarin provoked Chile to organise its
First Chilean Antarctic Expedition in 1947–48, where the Chilean president
Gabriel González Videla personally inaugurated one of its bases. Following the end of the war in 1945, the British bases were handed over to civilian members of the newly created
Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (subsequently the
British Antarctic Survey), the first such national scientific body to be established in Antarctica.
Postwar developments in 1903. It was there that the only instance of shots fired in anger on the Continent occurred in 1952. Friction between the United Kingdom and Argentina continued into the postwar period.
Royal Navy warships were dispatched in 1948 to prevent naval incursions. The only instance of shots fired in anger on Antarctica occurred in 1952 at
Hope Bay, when staff at British Base "D" (established 1945) came up against the Argentine team at
Esperanza Base (est. 1952), who fired a machine gun over the heads of a
British Antarctic Survey team unloading supplies from the
John Biscoe. The Argentines later extended a
diplomatic apology, saying that there had been a misunderstanding and that the Argentine military commander on the ground had exceeded his authority. The United States became politically interested in the Antarctic continent before and during WWII. The
United States Antarctic Service Expedition, from 1939 to 1941, was sponsored by the government with additional support from donations and gifts by private citizens, corporations and institutions. The objective of the Expedition, outlined by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, was to establish two bases: East Base, in the vicinity of
Charcot Island, and West Base, in the vicinity of
King Edward VII Land. After operating successfully for two years but with international tensions on the rise, it was considered wise to evacuate the two bases. However, immediately after the war, American interest was rekindled with an explicitly geopolitical motive.
Operation Highjump, from 1946 to 1947 was organised by
Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd Jr. and included 4,700 men, 13 ships, and multiple aircraft. The primary mission of Operation Highjump was to establish the
Antarctic research base
Little America IV, for the purpose of training personnel and testing equipment in frigid conditions and amplifying existing stores of knowledge of
hydrographic, geographic,
geological,
meteorological and
electromagnetic propagation conditions in the area. The mission was also aimed at consolidating and extending United States sovereignty over the largest practicable area of the
Antarctic continent, although this was publicly denied as a goal even before the expedition ended.
Towards an international treaty was pivotal in establishing a cooperative international framework in Antarctica, and led on to the
Antarctic Treaty System in 1959. Meanwhile, in an attempt at ending the impasse, the United Kingdom submitted an application to the
International Court of Justice in 1955 to adjudicate between the territorial claims of the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Chile. This proposal failed, as both Latin American countries rejected submitting to an international arbitration procedure. Negotiations towards the establishment of an international condominium over the continent first began in 1948, involving the 8 claimant countries: United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, US, France, Norway, Chile and Argentina. This attempt was aimed at excluding the Soviet Union from the affairs of the continent and rapidly fell apart when the USSR declared an interest in the region, refused to recognize any claims of sovereignty and reserved the right to make its own claims in 1950. The US erected the
Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station as the first permanent structure directly over the South Pole in January 1957.
Treaty agreed Finally, to prevent the possibility of military conflict in the region, the United States, United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and 9 other countries with significant interests negotiated and signed the
Antarctic Treaty in 1959. The treaty entered into force in 1961 and sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, established freedom of scientific investigation, and banned
military activity on that continent. The treaty was the first
arms control agreement established during the
Cold War. == Antarctic territorial claims ==