The Antarctic Maritime Tracker: The United Kingdom

This map depicts Argentina's internationally submitted sovereignty and sovereign rights claims featured in national legislation with regard to the Antarctic continent and various island and archipelago groups. Click on a feature to learn more about each individual claim. Due to basemap limitations, the full extent of some claims is cut off at the border as the full Sub-Antarctic region cannot be displayed and to place greater emphasis on the main continent.

Perhaps the only true major sovereignty dispute in the Antarctic region that has led to actual bloodshed in the modern era is in regard to ongoing tensions between the UK and Argentina, which has led to significant overlapping sovereign and sovereign rights claims. In particular, the sovereignty dispute over the Falkland Islands, which have been effectively under British control since the early 1800s, is typically viewed as the primary source of tension between the two nations. Following World War II, the sovereignty of the islands was granted to the United Nations in 1964 and was to be  debated by the UN Committee on Decolonization . The Committee requested the following year  via a formal resolution  for the two countries to "[find] a peaceful solution to the problem."

These talks would continue peacefully for the next two decades until 1982, when Argentina's junta government, now led by Leopoldo Galtieri, mounted an amphibious assault on the island, launching a 10-week long undeclared war known as the Falklands War in 1982. Following the Argentine loss of this war and heavy casualties, control of the islands has remained under British control ever since. However, the UK released a  joint statement with Argentina  in 1990 to establish a system of fisheries jurisdiction and later submitted to UNCLOS  Proclamation No. 1 of 1994 , in which the UK unilaterally reduced its Falkland Island exclusive economic zone outer limits claim in order to ease tensions between the two countries. Despite these agreements, Argentina continues to maintain its sovereignty claim to the Falklands and other disputed areas with the UK in the Antarctic region.

In areas where sovereignty or sovereign rights are in dispute, we show the claims of each party based on the best publicly available information. ICAS emphasizes that these maps are not to be taken as an endorsement of any one party's respective claims over another's.