Queen Maud Land
Norway's territorial claim in Antarctica
Queen Maud Land (Norwegian: Dronning Maud Land) is a roughly 2.7-million-square-kilometre (1.0-million-square-mile) region of Antarctica claimed by Norway as a dependent territory. It borders the claimed British Antarctic Territory 20° west, specifically the Caird Coast, Coats Land on the West, and the Australian Antarctic Territory 45° east, specifically Enderby Land on the East. In addition, a small unclaimed area from 1939 was annexed in June 2015. Positioned in East Antarctica, it makes out about one-fifth of the continent, and is named after the Norwegian Queen Maud (1869–1938).
In 1930, the Norwegian Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen was the first person known to have set foot in the territory. On 14 January 1939, the territory was claimed by Norway. On 23 June 1961, Queen Maud Land became part of the Antarctic Treaty System, making it a demilitarised zone. It is one of two Antarctic claims made by Norway, the other being Peter I Island. They are administered by the Polar Affairs Department of the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security in Oslo.
Most of the territory is covered by the east Antarctic ice sheet, and a tall ice wall stretches throughout its coast.
“Queen Maud Land” enters the record as norway's territorial claim in Antarctica. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Queen, Maud and Land can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q189999. VIAF identifies the subject as 134765552. The Library of Congress control number is n90685158. Authority coordinates are -72.500, 12.000. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 2015, 1869 and 1938.
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This entry incorporates text from “Queen Maud Land” 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.