The South Pole Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
49 free The South Pole trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This South Pole trivia quiz covers the southernmost point on Earth, from the race of 1911–12 to the scientists who winter there today. The easy questions ask which continent it sits on, who reached it first, who arrived 34 days later and never made it home, what happens to the compass directions when you stand there and how long the winter night lasts. From there it moves through Shackleton's turn-back, Byrd's flight, the first landing in 1956, the station built for the International Geophysical Year and the treaty that keeps the continent demilitarised. The hard end is for people who know their Framheim from their One Ton Depot: why the marker is moved every New Year's Day, the time zone the station keeps and why, the depth of Amundsen's buried tent, the dogs slaughtered at the Butchers' Shop, the telegram waiting in Melbourne, the coldest and warmest temperatures ever recorded there, the doctor who biopsied her own tumour, the neutrino detector buried in a cubic kilometre of ice and the Lenin bust at the Pole of Inaccessibility. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on the South Pole, the Amundsen–Scott station, Amundsen's expedition, the Terra Nova Expedition, the Nimrod Expedition, Roald Amundsen, Richard Byrd, the Antarctic Treaty, IceCube and the Pole of Inaccessibility before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Antarctica, Arctic exploration and Ernest Shackleton quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Geographic South Pole lies at which degree of latitude?
90°
90° south is as far as the scale goes: every line of longitude meets at the Pole, so it has a latitude but no longitude of its own.
Q 02Which 1982 horror film do South Pole winterers traditionally watch on the night the last plane leaves?
The Thing
The Thing, in which a shape-shifting alien picks off the crew of an isolated Antarctic base, is screened in the station gym as soon as the winter crew is cut off.
Q 03Scott's expedition, beaten to the Pole by 34 days, was named after which ship?
Terra Nova
Terra Nova, a former whaler, gave Scott's last expedition its name. The five men who reached the Pole found proof that Amundsen had got there first, and all died on the way back.
Q 04Standing on the Pole in Antarctica, every direction you can face is which compass direction?
North
North is the only direction on offer: every line of longitude meets at the Pole, so any step away from it, whichever way you face, heads north.
Q 05During which months is the Sun never above the horizon at the South Pole?
May through August
May through August falls inside one long night: the Sun sets around the March equinox and does not rise again until the September equinox.
Q 06Roughly how thick is the ice sheet at the South Pole?
About 2,700 metres
About 2,700 metres of ice lie under the marker, so the bedrock beneath the Pole sits close to sea level.
Q 07Why is the Geographic South Pole's marker repositioned annually?
The ice sheet moves about 10 metres a year
The ice sheet moves about 10 metres a year, carrying the station and every old marker with it, so a newly made stake is planted at the true Pole each year.
Q 08On what day is the South Pole marker ceremonially repositioned?
New Year's Day
New Year's Day is the date: the marker is replanted at the freshly surveyed Pole, with a new top piece designed by the winter crew and made in the station's machine shop.
Q 09What surrounds the metal sphere at the Ceremonial South Pole?
Flags of the original Antarctic Treaty signatories
Flags of the original Antarctic Treaty signatories, twelve in all, ring the sphere. It is a stand-in for photographs: the real Pole, yards away, is a small stake that moves each year.
Q 10What did Amundsen's party leave standing at the South Pole in December 1911 for Scott to find?
A tent
A tent, holding a letter Amundsen asked Scott to carry home in case the Norwegians died on the way back. Drifting snow has since buried it deep beneath the surface.
Q 11What landmark structure sheltered the US South Pole station's buildings from 1975 into the 2000s?
A geodesic dome
A geodesic dome 50 metres wide covered the station's buildings. It was taken apart in 2009–10 and shipped to California, where its top ring hangs in the museum of the Navy Seabees who built it.
Q 12The US-run South Pole station keeps the time of which other country, the usual gateway for its flights?
New Zealand
New Zealand time is kept because the station is usually reached by way of New Zealand. Every line of longitude meets at the Pole, so any time zone would have done.
Q 13US military flights supplying McMurdo and the South Pole run under what operation name?
Deep Freeze
Q 21Amundsen's party slaughtered dogs for food at the top of the Axel Heiberg Glacier at a spot they called what?
The Butchers' Shop
The Butchers' Shop was part of the plan: once the dogs had hauled the sledges up to the plateau, all but eighteen were shot to feed the men and the remaining dogs.
Q 22Amundsen borrowed which famous polar ship, previously used by Fridtjof Nansen, for his South Pole expedition?
Fram
Fram was built so that pack ice would lift it rather than crush it. Nansen used it to drift across the Arctic Ocean, and Amundsen then took it to the far end of the Earth.
Q 23Scott, Wilson and Bowers died in their tent how far short of the supply depot that might have saved them?
11 miles
Deep Freeze began in 1955 as the Navy operation that built the first South Pole station for the International Geophysical Year, and the name has stuck to US Antarctic supply missions ever since.
Q 14Who led the first flight over the South Pole, in November 1929?
Richard Byrd
Richard Byrd was the navigator, not the pilot: the Norwegian Bernt Balchen flew the plane, and the flight earned Byrd promotion to rear admiral.
Q 15Which song named the first plane to land at the South Pole?
Que Sera, Sera
Que Sera, Sera was the name of the Navy plane that set an admiral's party down on 31 October 1956. Nobody had stood at the Pole since Scott's men left it, 44 years before.
Q 16Which Everest conqueror reached the South Pole overland in January 1958?
Edmund Hillary
Edmund Hillary led the support team laying supply depots for Vivian Fuchs's main party, and beat Fuchs to the Pole by about two weeks.
Q 17What everyday vehicles became the first ever driven to the South Pole, in January 1958?
Farm tractors
Farm tractors: three Fergusons fitted with tracks, brought along to haul supplies for a depot-laying team, became the first land vehicles to reach the Pole.
Q 18Which explorer turned back in January 1909 only 97 nautical miles from the South Pole?
Ernest Shackleton
Ernest Shackleton never reached the Pole, yet coming so close made him a hero: he was knighted on his return, two years before anyone got there.
Q 19Scott learned he was in a race with Amundsen from a telegram waiting at which Australian port?
Melbourne
Melbourne is where the cable caught up with Scott in October 1910. It said only that Amundsen was proceeding to the Antarctic, leaving the British to guess his plans.
Q 20Amundsen built his base at which inlet in the Ross Ice Shelf, about 100 km nearer the Pole than Scott's?
The Bay of Whales
The Bay of Whales was as far south as a ship could sail, which gave the Norwegians a head start of about 100 km over Scott's base at McMurdo Sound.
11 miles was all that lay between them and One Ton Depot, but a blizzard pinned the three men in their tent for nine days, until they died.
Q 24Which member of Scott's polar party walked out into a blizzard saying 'I am just going outside and may be some time'?
Lawrence Oates
Lawrence Oates, crippled by frostbite, hoped that without him to slow them his three companions might still get home. His body was never found.
Q 25Scott's last expedition planned to haul its loads with dogs, ponies and what novel technology?
Motor sledges
Motor sledges were Scott's experiment, and they soon broke down. The ponies were shot on the march, leaving the men to haul their own sledges.
Q 26Roald Amundsen disappeared in June 1928 while doing what?
Flying to rescue the crew of the airship Italia
Amundsen was flying to rescue the crew of the airship Italia, which had crashed on the Arctic ice. Its commander, Umberto Nobile, was saved by others; Amundsen's remains were never found.
Q 27South Pole winterers join the '300 Club' by running out into −100 °F cold straight from what?
A sauna
A sauna heated to 200 °F is the starting line: members dash to the Pole marker and back wearing next to nothing, a swing of 300 degrees.
Q 28Which Antarctic station logged Earth's lowest recorded air temperature, −89.2 °C, in 1983?
Vostok Station
Vostok Station, a Soviet base, set the record in July 1983; the South Pole's own low is −82.8 °C. Deep under Vostok's ice lies Antarctica's largest lake, liquid water that drillers reached in 2012.
Q 29The South Pole's record high of −12.3 °C, set in 2011, fell on which day?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day 2011 was the Pole's heat wave: the air stayed twelve degrees below freezing, yet it was the warmest reading since records began in 1957.
Q 30Why is the South Pole so much colder than the North Pole?
It sits high on an ice sheet
It sits high on an ice sheet in the middle of a continent, while the North Pole lies at sea level in the middle of an ocean.