The North and South Poles

Earth spins like a top.

It spins around an imaginary line. One end of the line is the North Pole. The other end is the South Pole.

Earth spins around an imaginary line called its axis, which runs through the planet from top to bottom. National Geographic Education explains that the North Pole is the exact point where that axis meets Earth's surface at the top, and the South Pole is where it meets the surface at the bottom.

The North Pole is the northernmost point on Earth, at 90 degrees north. The South Pole is the southernmost, at 90 degrees south. All the lines of longitude meet at both poles.

National Geographic Education defines each geographic pole as the precise point where Earth's axis intersects its surface: the North Pole at the northern end, the South Pole at the southern. Their latitudes are 90° N and 90° S, the largest possible, and every meridian of longitude converges on them.

These geographic poles are not the same as the magnetic poles that compasses respond to. The British Geological Survey publishes the positions of the north magnetic dip pole computed from the International Geomagnetic Reference Field; for 2025 it gives about 85.7° N, several hundred kilometers from the geographic North Pole, and its table shows that position moving from year to year.

There is no land at the North Pole.

It is in the middle of an ocean. The top of the ocean is frozen into ice. Below the ice is deep water.

The North Pole is in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, on water that is almost always covered with ice. National Geographic says the ice is about 2 to 3 meters (6 to 10 feet) thick, and the ocean beneath is more than 4,000 meters deep.

The nearest land is the Canadian territory of Nunavut, and Greenland is close too. Because the North Pole sits on an ocean at sea level, it is much warmer than the South Pole. In summer the temperature is right around freezing, 0 degrees Celsius.

The North Pole lies in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, on sea ice about 2–3 m (6–10 ft) thick over water more than 4,000 m (13,123 ft) deep. Nunavut, Canada, is the closest land; Greenland is also near. National Geographic explains that the North Pole is much warmer than the South Pole because it is at sea level and surrounded by ocean, which is warmer than an ice-covered continent; its summer temperature is close to 0 °C.

Because the ice drifts, there is no ground for permanent buildings. National Geographic notes that the most consistent research there has come from staffed drifting stations that move with the ice pack. In 1948, measurements of the seafloor from these stations revealed the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain chain crossing the Arctic from Siberia to Ellesmere Island, Canada.

The South Pole is on land.

The land is a big continent called Antarctica. It is covered by very thick ice. It is the colder of the two poles.

The South Pole is on Antarctica, one of Earth's seven continents. The land there is only about 100 meters above sea level, but it is covered by an ice sheet about 2,700 meters (9,000 feet) thick. Standing on top of all that ice puts the South Pole high up, and that helps make it much colder than the North Pole.

Even the warmest temperature ever recorded at the South Pole was below freezing: minus 12.3 degrees Celsius. The ice sheet there moves slowly too, about 10 meters every year.

The South Pole lies on the Antarctic continent. National Geographic gives the land surface as only about a hundred meters above sea level, under an ice sheet roughly 2,700 m (9,000 ft) thick; that elevation is what makes it much colder than the North Pole. Its warmest recorded temperature is −12.3 °C (9.9 °F) and its coldest −82.8 °C (−117 °F), still warmer than the −89.2 °C recorded at Vostok Station, about 1,300 km away.

The pole's surface is not fixed. The ice sheet above it drifts about 10 m (33 ft) a year, and over far longer times plate tectonics has moved the land itself: National Geographic notes that land now on the east coast of South America was once at the South Pole.

Stand at the North Pole and turn around.

Every way you face is south! At the South Pole, every way is north.

Here is a puzzle: at the North Pole, which way is east? There is no answer, because National Geographic explains that from the North Pole, all directions are south. Every step you take moves you away from the top of the world. At the South Pole, all directions are north.

The night sky over the North Pole has a special star. Polaris, the North Star, sits almost still in the sky above the pole, which National Geographic says makes it an excellent fixed point for navigating in the Northern Hemisphere.

Directions behave strangely at the poles. Because north means "toward the North Pole," a person standing on it can only go south, whichever way they face; at the South Pole, every direction is north. East and west, which run along circles of latitude, have shrunk to nothing, since the circle at 90° is a single point.

The sky reflects this geometry. National Geographic notes that Polaris, the current North Star, sits almost motionless above the North Pole, making it an excellent fixed point for celestial navigation in the Northern Hemisphere; NOAA explains that the North Star's angle above the horizon gives a navigator's approximate latitude, so at 90° N it stands nearly overhead.

At the poles, the Sun stays up for months in summer.

In winter, it stays down for months. It is dark, and you can see the stars.

At the poles, days and nights are very different from ours. NASA explains that the North and South Poles have continuous daylight or darkness, depending on the time of year.

National Geographic says the North Pole has only one sunrise each year, at the March equinox, and one sunset, at the September equinox. The South Pole is the opposite: its one sunrise is in September and its one sunset is in March. In between, the Sun stays above the horizon all summer and below it all winter.

Earth's tilted axis makes polar sunlight extreme. National Geographic notes that the North Pole sees only one sunrise a year, at the March equinox, and one sunset, at the September equinox; the South Pole's sunrise and sunset fall at the opposite equinoxes. Between them the Sun circles the sky without setting in summer and stays below the horizon in winter, giving up to 24 hours of sunlight or of darkness.

NASA's description is the same in brief: the poles have continuous daylight or darkness depending on the time of year. At the South Pole station, National Geographic notes, the dark sky, cold and strong winds of winter stop most supplies from arriving, so all food and other material must be in place before the long winter begins.

A few animals visit the North Pole.

Fish swim under the ice, and birds visit too. At the South Pole, scientists live and work at a research station.

Few land animals go right to the North Pole, because the drifting ice does not allow regular travel routes or dens. Polar bears sometimes wander there looking for food. Under the ice live shrimp, sea anemones and fish such as Arctic cod, and migrating birds such as snow buntings visit.

At the South Pole, the United States has had scientists working at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station since 1956. Between 50 and 200 people live there at any one time, and in winter they even grow vegetables in a greenhouse.

National Geographic describes the North Pole as a poor home for land animals: drifting ice does not allow regular migration routes or dens, though polar bears sometimes wander in search of food. The water beneath is richer, with shrimp, sea anemones, tiny crustaceans and fish, of which Arctic cod are the most abundant. All the birds seen near the pole are migratory.

The South Pole, on stable land, is easier to study. The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station has hosted U.S. scientists since 1956, with 50 to 200 people there at a time. It can adjust its height so it is not buried by the roughly 20 cm of snow that builds up each year. Its research includes ice cores and the South Pole Telescope, which studies the faint microwave glow left over from the Big Bang.