Bouvet Island
The world's most remote island
Category Anomalous Islands
For a place known as "the loneliest place on earth" a surprising number of people have tried to claim it as their own.
An uninhabited Arctic island halfway between South Africa and Antarctica, Bouvet is the most remote island in the world, and as such, perhaps the most remote landmass in the world. (Arguments could be made for the bottom of the ocean, the Eurasian pole of inaccessibility, and obviously areas of Antarctica but as an island, Bouvet has a kind of double remoteness.) 1404 miles away from the nearest people -- all 271 of them, on the island of Tristan da Cunha, which is incidentally, the most remote inhabited island in the world -- Bouvet is not without any life, though vegetation is limited to lichens and mosses while seals, seabirds and penguins are the only fauna.
When people do happen get close to Bouvet, it is incredibly difficult to access due to the high glacial cliffs that surround it. The best way to get on the island is to fly a helicopter from the deck of a ship and delicately land on its icy surface. Essentially, Bouvet is an ice covered, glacier surrounded, inhospitable lump. Yet it has been the object of national desire, carried at least three different names, and is even caught up in mysterious episode of international intrigue.
Likely discovered by Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier on January 1, 1739, its position in the ocean was misstated and it wasn't until until 1808 that the island was seen by human eyes again. Re-found by James Lindsay, he figured it was a different island then Bouvet and named it, no surprise, Lindsay Island. In 1825, whaler Captain Norris, found it once again, renamed it Liverpool Island, and this time, claimed it for the British Crown. But the claim didn't stick and on December 1, 1927, Norway landed, stayed on the island for a month, and claimed the ice rock for themselves. They renamed it Bouvetøya after the original discoverer Bouvet de Lozier.
Since then the island has remained in Norwegian control and is occasionally used by scientific parties, for monitoring whale migration. The island also has some a number of mysteries surrounding it. In 1964, an abandoned boat was discovered on the island, along with various supplies; however, the boat's passengers were never found. The identity of the travelers is still unknown. In 1979 a bright flash of light was seen between Bouvet Island and Prince Edward Islands by the U.S. Vela satellite. Known the Vela Incident, it is now believed that the flash was caused by a secret South African-Israeli joint nuclear bomb detonation, though neither country has officially admitted to such.
1971, Bouvet Island and the adjacent territorial waters were designated a nature reserve. Strangly the island has its own internet domain ".bv" but as of yet, no .bv sites exist on the internet as the Norwegian government has decided that it will remain unused, for now at least.
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- Hours 24/7 if you could get to it.
- Address Norway
- Cost Impossibly expensive, if you could even convince a Norwgeian expedition to take you along.
- "No Longer On the Map: Places That Never Were," by Raymond Ramsay (1972) is a good place to start; it mentions Bouvet in its appexdix. Perhaps, in fact, it is the only place to start, so obscure is this place.
Head SSW from the South African coast; this will be the sole landfall before Antarctica, though no one will be there to meet you.
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Please correct the typo on the word "norwgian." Thanks.
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