Bouvet Island

Bouvet Island
Bouvetøya (Norwegian)
Dependent territory of Norway
Location of Bouvet Island (circled in red)
Location of Bouvet Island (circled in red, in the Atlantic Ocean)
Country Norway
Annexed by Norway23 January 1928 (1928-01-23)
Dependency status27 February 1930[1]
Nature reserve declared17 December 1971[2]
Official languagesNorwegian
GovernmentDependency under a constitutional monarchy
• Monarch
Harald V
• Administered by
Ministry of Justice and Public Security
• Baron (de jure)
Nils Olav III
Area
• Total
49 km2 (19 sq mi)
• Glaciated
93%
Highest elevation
780 m (2,560 ft)
Population
• Estimate
0
ISO 3166 codeBV
Internet TLD
Map

Bouvet Island (/ˈbuːveɪ/ BOO-vay; Norwegian: Bouvetøya[3] [bʉˈvèːœʏɑ])[4] is an uninhabited island and dependency of Norway. It is a protected nature reserve. It is a subantarctic volcanic island, situated in the South Atlantic Ocean at the southern end of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and is the world's most remote island. Located north of the Antarctic Circle, it is not part of the southern region covered by the Antarctic Treaty System.

The island lies 1,700 km (1,100 mi) north of the Princess Astrid Coast of Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, 1,870 km (1,160 mi) east of the South Sandwich Islands, 1,845 km (1,146 mi) south of Gough Island, and 2,520 km (1,570 mi) south-southwest of the coast of South Africa. It has an area of 49 km2 (19 sq mi), 93 percent of which is covered by a glacier. The centre of the island is the ice-filled crater of an inactive volcano. Some skerries and one smaller island, Larsøya, lie along its coast. Nyrøysa, created by a rock slide in the late 1950s, is the only easy place to land and is the location of a weather station.

The island was first spotted on 1 January 1739 by the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier, during a French exploration mission in the South Atlantic with the ships Aigle and Marie. They did not make landfall. He mislabeled the coordinates for the island, and it was not sighted again until 1808, when the British whaler James Lindsay encountered it and named it Lindsay Island.[5] The first claim to have landed on the island was made by the American sailor Benjamin Morrell, although this claim is disputed. In 1825, the island was claimed for the British Crown by George Norris, who named it Liverpool Island. He also reported having sighted another island nearby, which he named Thompson Island, but this was later shown to be a phantom island.

In 1927, the first Norvegia expedition landed on the island, and claimed it for Norway. At that point, the island was given its current name of Bouvet Island ("Bouvetøya" in Norwegian).[6] In 1930, following resolution of a dispute with the United Kingdom over claiming rights, it was declared a Norwegian dependency. In 1971, it was designated a nature reserve.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference LOV19300227 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference FOR19711217 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference polar-stadnamn-Bouvetøya was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Berulfsen-1969 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mills-2003-1-96 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference wordpress-abandoned-lifeboat was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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