Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station
US scientific research station at the South Pole, Antarctica
The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station is a United States scientific research station at the South Pole of the Earth. It is the southernmost point under the jurisdiction (not sovereignty) of the United States. The station is located on the high plateau of Antarctica at 9,301 feet (2,835 m) above sea level. It is administered by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation, specifically the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). It is named in honor of Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Briton Robert F. Scott, leaders of the competing first and second expeditions to reach the pole, in the summer of 1911–1912.
The original Amundsen–Scott Station was built by Navy Seabees for the federal government of the United States during November 1956, as part of its commitment to the scientific goals of the International Geophysical Year, an effort lasting from January 1957 to June 1958 to study, among other things, the geophysics of the polar regions of Earth.
Before November 1956, there was no permanent artificial structure at the pole, and practically no human presence in the interior of Antarctica. The few scientific stations in Antarctica were near its coast. The station has been continuously occupied since it was built and has been rebuilt, expanded, and upgraded several times.
The station is the only inhabited place on the surface of the Earth from which the Sun is continuously visible for six months; it is then continuously dark for the next six months, with approximately two days of averaged dark and light, twilight, namely the equinoxes.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station” as uS scientific research station at the South Pole, Antarctica. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as uS scientific research station at the South Pole, Antarctica. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q243307. VIAF identifies the subject as 125563491. The Library of Congress control number is n85308430. Authority coordinates are -89.998, 139.273. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1911, 1912, 1956 and 1957.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.