Southern extremity of the Earth's axis, located at latitude 90° S. It is the southern point from which all meridians of longitude start.
The area around it is a lofty plateau in west-central Antarctica , with ice as much as 8,850 ft (2,700 m) thick. It has six months of complete daylight and six months of total darkness each year. It was first reached by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in 1911, one month before the expedition led by British explorer Robert Falcon Scott ; U.S. explorer Richard E. Byrd flew to the pole in 1929. The geographic pole does not coincide with the magnetic South Pole, which lies on the Adélie Coast about 66°00 2032; S, 139°06 2032; E; it moves about 8 mi (13 km) to the northwest each year. The geomagnetic South Pole also moves; during the early 1990s it was located about 79°13 2032; S, 108°44 2032; E, and in 2000 it was 65°39 2032; S, 140° 01 2032; E.