It’s huge. Honestly, the sheer scale of the bottom of the world is hard to wrap your head around until you see it on a map that hasn't been stretched out by a weird Mercator projection. Most people think of it as a small, frozen cap. It's not. If you're wondering how many square miles is Antarctica, the short answer is roughly 5.4 million.
But "roughly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
That 5.4 million square miles (which is about 14 million square kilometers for the rest of the world) makes it the fifth-largest continent. To give you some perspective, it’s about 1.5 times the size of the United States. You could fit the entire contiguous U.S. inside it and still have plenty of room for a few European countries around the edges. It’s a massive, drifting, frozen desert that holds about 90% of the world's ice.
The size changes. Seasonally, the continent effectively "doubles" because of the sea ice. It’s like the land is breathing. In the winter, the surrounding ocean freezes over, extending the reach of the white wilderness by millions of extra miles. Then, in the summer, it retreats.
Why the exact size of Antarctica is actually kind of a trick question
Calculating how many square miles is Antarctica isn't as simple as measuring a piece of plywood. Most continents have a clear coastline. Antarctica has ice shelves. These are massive floating platforms of ice that are attached to the land but stick out over the ocean.
The Ross Ice Shelf alone is about the size of France.
If you count the ice shelves, the square mileage goes up. If you only count the "grounded" ice—the stuff actually touching the bedrock—the number drops. Most geographers settle on that 5.4 million figure because it represents the permanent ice mass.
The Bedrock vs. The Ice
Underneath all that white is a rugged landscape of mountains and valleys. If you stripped away the ice (which averages over a mile thick), the continent wouldn't look like a solid mass. It would be an archipelago. A messy collection of islands and deep basins.
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The weight of the ice is so heavy that it actually pushes the earth's crust down. It's called isostatic depression. If the ice melted, the land would slowly "spring" back up over thousands of years. Scientists like those at the British Antarctic Survey spend decades mapping this hidden topography using radio-echo sounding. They’ve found that the deepest point on land is actually in East Antarctica, under the Denman Glacier, sitting more than 11,000 feet below sea level.
Comparing the 5.4 million square miles to things you actually know
Numbers like "5.4 million" are just digits on a screen. They don't feel real.
Think about it this way:
- Australia: Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia.
- Europe: It’s larger than the entire European continent.
- The Sahara: It’s significantly bigger than the largest hot desert on Earth.
It is a place of extremes. You’ve got the Transantarctic Mountains, a range that stretches over 2,000 miles, cutting the continent into East and West. East Antarctica is the "big" part. It’s a high, cold plateau. West Antarctica is the "small" part—a series of islands covered by an ice sheet that is significantly more unstable.
The distinction matters. Most of the news you hear about ice melting and sea-level rise focuses on West Antarctica. Because it's "smaller" (though still hundreds of thousands of square miles), changes there happen faster.
The seasonal "beating heart" of the Southern Ocean
Every year, a wild transformation happens. As the Southern Hemisphere tilts away from the sun, the sea ice begins to grow. It grows at a rate of about 40,000 square miles per day.
That is fast.
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At its winter peak, the total area of Antarctica plus its sea ice can reach almost 11 million square miles. It's the largest seasonal change on Earth. This cycle is what drives global ocean currents. Cold, salty water sinks near the continent and travels across the globe, acting like a giant conveyor belt for nutrients and temperature regulation.
Without those 5.4 million square miles of reflective white surface, the planet would absorb way too much heat. It’s Earth’s primary air conditioner.
Is the size shrinking?
This is where things get nuanced. While the "land" mass (the grounded ice) isn't disappearing overnight, the volume is changing. Satellites like NASA’s ICESat-2 track the height of the ice down to the centimeter. Some areas are gaining a little bit of height due to increased snowfall, but the edges—especially in the Antarctic Peninsula—are crumbling.
When an iceberg the size of Delaware breaks off, it doesn't technically change the "square miles" of the continent's bedrock, but it changes the map.
What it’s actually like to stand in the middle of those millions of miles
I've talked to researchers who spend seasons at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. They describe it as being on another planet.
There is no smell. No dirt. No sound except the wind.
Because it’s so large and so high up (the South Pole is at nearly 10,000 feet of elevation), the air is incredibly thin and dry. It’s technically a desert. In fact, it's the driest place on Earth. Some parts of the McMurdo Dry Valleys haven't seen rain or snow in millions of years.
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Imagine 5.4 million square miles of... nothing. No trees. No bushes. Just ice, rock, and the occasional penguin colony near the coast. The sheer emptiness is what strikes people. You can fly for hours in a Twin Otter plane and see nothing but the "Sastrugi"—the wind-sculpted ridges in the snow—stretching to the horizon.
Navigating the void
How do you map a place that is 98% ice?
For a long time, we didn't. Large parts of the interior were just blank spots on the map labeled "unexplored." Today, we use the Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA). It's a high-resolution map that shows every bump and crevasse.
- East Antarctica: Roughly 3.9 million square miles. It's the older, colder, more stable side.
- West Antarctica: About 1.5 million square miles. It’s the "wet" side, where the ice sits on ground that is mostly below sea level.
- The Peninsula: The "tail" that points toward South America. This is where most tourists go. It’s the warmest part, relatively speaking.
If you ever plan on visiting, you'll likely see less than 1% of the total area. Most cruise ships stick to the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. To see the "real" 5.4 million square miles, you’d need a death wish or a massive research grant.
Actionable ways to understand the scale
If you're a student, a traveler, or just someone who likes weird geography facts, don't just memorize the number 5.4 million.
Use Google Earth Pro. Turn off the "borders and labels" and just spin the globe to the bottom. Measure the distance from the coast to the South Pole. It’s roughly 800 to 1,000 miles depending on where you start. That’s like driving from New York City to Jacksonville, Florida, across nothing but a frozen wasteland.
Check the NSIDC website. The National Snow and Ice Data Center has a "Sea Ice Index." You can watch a real-time animation of the continent growing and shrinking. It’s the best way to visualize how the square mileage of the "Antarctic region" fluctuates compared to the permanent 5.4 million square miles of the continent itself.
Support Polar Research. The size of Antarctica makes it expensive and dangerous to study. Organizations like the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) work to keep the continent as a "natural reserve, devoted to peace and science" under the Antarctic Treaty. Given its size, keeping it protected is a massive geopolitical achievement.
Knowing how many square miles is Antarctica is the first step in realizing how much we still have to learn about the bottom of our world. It's a continent of 5.4 million square miles of secrets, buried under ice that has been there for over 30 million years.