Antarctica

[OmanYorkie]

I am told that Antarctica is not a country, just a continent, Can this be so.?

[Old_Geezer]

Seems reasonable to me. As far as I know, bits are claimed by various countries, and it has no internal government of its own.

[Old_Geezer]

Apart from the Penguin Alliance that is.

[jno]

yes, why not? It's the size of a continent - nearly twice the size of Australia, not that much smaller than South America. But it has no government (or much in the way of inhabitants) so it's hardly a country.

[New Judge]

Although a number of nations lay claim to various parts of Antarctica as “territories” the continent has no government and no settled population.

The 1959 Antarctic Treaty (currently with about fifty nations as signatories) neither recognises nor disputes these claims, but prevents any nations staking any further claims to territory south of latitude sixty degrees. It also prevents virtually any form of activity barring scientific research. So the answer must be that it is a geographical continent but does not demonstrate features such as a government, population, economy or infrastructure that might make it a “country”

I was lucky enough to spend two years in Antarctica in the late 1970s. It was cold !!!