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. On 18 September 2025 British explorer Chris Brown visited the Arctic pole of inaccessibility as part of his quest to visit all eight of the planet's poles of inaccessibility. Brown was unable to disembark at the exact pole - coordinates 85°48'N, 176°09'E - because it was open water at the time, so the icebreaker Le Commandant Charcot sailed through the pole and Brown recorded himself just four metres away from the exact coordinates, well within the recognised 1 km margin of error.
Southern pole of inaccessibility
The southern pole of inaccessibility is the point on the Antarctic continent most distant from the Southern Ocean. A variety of coordinate locations have been given for this pole. The discrepancies are due to the question of whether the "coast" is measured to the grounding line or the edges of ice shelves, the difficulty of determining the location of the "solid" coastline, the movement of ice sheets and improvements in the accuracy of survey data over the years, as well as possible topographical errors.
The point commonly referred to as the pole of inaccessibility is the site of the Soviet Union research station mentioned below, which was constructed at 82°6′S 54°58′E (though some sources give 83°6′S 54°58′E). This lies 1,301 km (808 mi) from the South Pole, at an elevation of 3,718 m (12,198 ft). Using different criteria, the Scott Polar Research Institute locates this pole at 85°50′S 65°47′E.
Using recent datasets and cross-confirmation between the adaptive gridding and B9-Hillclimbing methods discussed below, Rees et al. (2021) identify two poles of inaccessibility for Antarctica: an "outer" pole defined by the edge of Antarctica's floating ice shelves and an "inner" pole defined by the grounding lines of these sheets. They find the Outer pole to be at 83.904°S 64.890°E / -83.904; 64.890 (Antarctia's Outer Pole of Inaccessibility), 1,590.4 km (988.2 mi) from the ocean, and the Inner pole to be at 83.610°S 53.720°E / -83.610; 53.720 (Antarctia's Inner Pole of Inaccessibility), 1,179.4 km (732.8 mi) from the grounding lines.
The southern pole of inaccessibility is far more remote and difficult to reach than the geographic South Pole. On 14 December 1958, the 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition for International Geophysical Year research work, led by Yevgeny Tolstikov, established the temporary Pole of Inaccessibility Station (Russian: полюс недоступности, polyus nedostupnosti) at 82°6′S 54°58′E. A second Russian team returned there in 1967. A building marked by a bust of Vladimir Lenin that faces towards Moscow still remains at this location, which is protected as a historical site.
On 11 December 2005, at 7:57 UTC, Ramón Hernando de Larramendi, Juan Manuel Viu, and Ignacio Oficialdegui, members of the Spanish Transantarctic Expedition, reached for the first time in history the southern pole of inaccessibility at 82°53′14″S 55°4′30″E, updated that year by the British Antarctic Survey. The team continued their journey towards the second southern pole of inaccessibility, the one that accounts for the ice shelves as well as the continental land, and they were the first expedition to reach it, on 14 December 2005, at 83°50′37″S 65°43′30″E. Both achievements took place within an ambitious pioneer crossing of the eastern Antarctic Plateau that started at Novolazarevskaya Station and ended at Progress Base after more than 4,500 km (2,800 mi). This was the fastest polar journey ever achieved without mechanical aid, with an average rate of around 90 km (56 mi) per day and a maximum of 311 km (193 mi) per day, using kites as their power source.
On 4 December 2006, Team N2i, consisting of Henry Cookson, Rupert Longsdon, Rory Sweet and Paul Landry, embarked on an expedition to be the first to reach the historic pole of inaccessibility location without direct mechanical assistance, using a combination of traditional man hauling and kite skiing. The team reached the old abandoned station on 19 January 2007, rediscovering the forgotten statue of Lenin left there by the Soviets some 48 years previously. The team found that only the bust on top of the building remained visible; the rest was buried under the snow. The explorers were picked up from the spot by a plane from Vostok base, flown to Progress Base and taken back to Cape Town on the Akademik Fyodorov, a Russian polar research vessel.
On 27 December 2011, Sebastian Copeland and partner Eric McNair-Laundry also reached the 82°6′S 54°58′E southern pole of inaccessibility. They were the first to do so without resupply or mechanical support, departing from Novolazarevskaya Station on their way to the South Pole to complete the first East/West crossing of Antarctica through both poles, over 4,000 km (2,500 mi). On 11 January 2023 Chris Brown photographed his Garmin GPS on the plinth of the Lenin bust showing the coordinates to be 82°06.7022'S 55°02.0314'E.
As mentioned above, due to improvements in technology and the position of the continental edge of Antarctica being debated, the exact position of the best estimate of the pole of inaccessibility may vary. However, for the convenience of sport expeditions, a fixed point is preferred, and the Soviet station has been used for this role. This has been recognized by Guinness World Records for Team N2i's expedition in 2006–2007.
Oceanic pole of inaccessibility
The oceanic pole of inaccessibility, also known as Point Nemo, is located at roughly 48°52.6′S 123°23.6′W and is the place in the ocean that is farthest from land. It lies in the South Pacific Ocean, and is equally distant from the three closest land vertices which are each roughly 2,688 km (1,670 mi) away. Those vertices are Pandora Islet of the Ducie Island atoll (an island of the Pitcairn Islands) to the north; Motu Nui (adjacent to Easter Island) to the northeast; and Maher Island (near the larger Siple Island, off the coast of Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica) to the south. Due to a lack of adequately precise landmass surveys, the exact coordinates of Point Nemo remain unknown.