Compare Heard Island and McDonald Islands (2003) - Arctic Ocean (2002)

Compare Heard Island and McDonald Islands (2003) z Arctic Ocean (2002)

	Heard Island and McDonald Islands (2003)	Arctic Ocean (2002)

Area	total: 412 sq km land: 412 sq km water: 0 sq km	total: 14.056 million sq km note: includes Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, Northwest Passage, and other tributary water bodies
Area - comparative	slightly more than two times the size of Washington, DC	slightly less than 1.5 times the size of the US
Background	These uninhabited, barren, sub-Antarctic islands were transferred from the UK to Australia in 1947. Populated by large numbers of seal and bird species, the islands have been designated a nature preserve.	The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world's five oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the recently delimited Southern Ocean). The Northwest Passage (US and Canada) and Northern Sea Route (Norway and Russia) are two important seasonal waterways. A sparse network of air, ocean, river, and land routes circumscribes the Arctic Ocean.
Climate	antarctic	polar climate characterized by persistent cold and relatively narrow annual temperature ranges; winters characterized by continuous darkness, cold and stable weather conditions, and clear skies; summers characterized by continuous daylight, damp and foggy weather, and weak cyclones with rain or snow
Coastline	101.9 km	45,389 km
Country name	conventional long form: Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands conventional short form: Heard Island and McDonald Islands	-
Dependency status	territory of Australia; administered from Canberra by the Australian Antarctic Division of the Department of the Environment and Heritage	-
Diplomatic representation from the US	none (territory of Australia)	-
Diplomatic representation in the US	none (territory of Australia)	-
Disputes - international	none	some maritime disputes (see littoral states); Russia is the first state to submit data to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to extend its continental shelf by claiming two undersea ridges in the Arctic Ocean
Economy - overview	No indigenous economic activity, but the Australian Government allows limited fishing around the islands.	Economic activity is limited to the exploitation of natural resources, including petroleum, natural gas, fish, and seals.
Elevation extremes	lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 m highest point: Mawson Peak, on Big Ben 2,745 m	lowest point: Fram Basin -4,665 m highest point: sea level 0 m
Environment - current issues	NA	endangered marine species include walruses and whales; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow to recover from disruptions or damage; thinning polar icepack
Flag description	the flag of Australia is used	-
Geographic coordinates	53 06 S, 72 31 E	90 00 N, 0 00 E
Geography - note	-	major chokepoint is the southern Chukchi Sea (northern access to the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait); strategic location between North America and Russia; shortest marine link between the extremes of eastern and western Russia; floating research stations operated by the US and Russia; maximum snow cover in March or April about 20 to 50 centimeters over the frozen ocean; snow cover lasts about 10 months
Irrigated land	0 sq km (1998 est.)	-
Land boundaries	0 km	-
Land use	arable land: 0% permanent crops: 0% other: 100% (1998 est.)	-
Legal system	the laws of Australia, where applicable, apply	-
Location	islands in the Indian Ocean, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica	body of water between Europe, Asia, and North America, mostly north of the Arctic Circle
Map references	Antarctic Region	Arctic Region
Maritime claims	exclusive fishing zone: 200 NM territorial sea: 12 NM	-
Military - note	defense is the responsibility of Australia; Australia conducts fisheries patrols	-
Natural hazards	Mawson Peak, an active volcano, is on Heard Island	ice islands occasionally break away from northern Ellesmere Island; icebergs calved from glaciers in western Greenland and extreme northeastern Canada; permafrost in islands; virtually ice locked from October to June; ships subject to superstructure icing from October to May
Natural resources	fish	sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales)
Population	uninhabited (July 2003 est.)	-
Ports and harbors	none; offshore anchorage only	Churchill (Canada), Murmansk (Russia), Prudhoe Bay (US)
Terrain	Heard Island - 80% ice-covered, bleak and mountainous, dominated by a large massif (Big Ben) and an active volcano (Mawson Peak); McDonald Islands - small and rocky	central surface covered by a perennial drifting polar icepack that averages about 3 meters in thickness, although pressure ridges may be three times that size; clockwise drift pattern in the Beaufort Gyral Stream, but nearly straight-line movement from the New Siberian Islands (Russia) to Denmark Strait (between Greenland and Iceland); the icepack is surrounded by open seas during the summer, but more than doubles in size during the winter and extends to the encircling landmasses; the ocean floor is about 50% continental shelf (highest percentage of any ocean) with the remainder a central basin interrupted by three submarine ridges (Alpha Cordillera, Nansen Cordillera, and Lomonosov Ridge)
Transportation - note	-	sparse network of air, ocean, river, and land routes; the Northwest Passage (North America) and Northern Sea Route (Eurasia) are important seasonal waterways
Waterways	none	-

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