15. The Antarctic’s name had its roots in Ancient Greece.
Most people have heard of the Antarctic from Geography lessons, but few people know how the coldest continent on earth got its name. Norwegians first explored the earth’s most southerly continent in the nineteenth century. These early pioneers awarded Norwegian names to the places they discovered. However, the name of the new continent came from the classical world. The ‘arctic’ element of Antarctic (or ‘anti arctic’) derives from the Greek arkto or bear. The northern polar region was known as the Arctic or the land of bears because the constellations of Ursa Major and minor were visible from the northern hemisphere. So it was logical to view the Arctic’s polar opposite as Antarktikos: “opposite the land of the bears.”