The world’s extreme points include the geographic and magnetic poles, Mt. Everest as the highest point, the Dead Sea as the lowest point on land, and the Challenger Deep as the lowest point in the ocean. El Azizia, Libya and Death Valley, California are the hottest points, while Vostok station in Antarctica is the coldest.
The most obvious extreme points in the world are the north and south poles. The imaginary line through the north and south poles creates the axis around which the world rotates. As such, these are called the geographic poles. There are also the north and south magnetic poles, where all compasses point. The North Pole and the South Pole are both in extremely cold territory: the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean, the South Pole on one side of the Antarctic continent. The South Pole and the North Pole were reached by expeditions in 1911 and 1908, respectively.
Other famous extreme points are the highest and lowest elevations in the world. The highest point in the world is Mt. Everest, Tibet with an elevation of 8,848m (29,028ft) above sea level. This is just under 5 1/2 miles above sea level. mt. Everest was first summited in 1953. Over 200 climbers have died on its perilous slopes.
The world’s lowest elevation on land is the shores of the Dead Sea, 420 meters (1,378 feet) below sea level. Even lower is the Bentley Subglacial Trench, located in Antarctica, 2,555 meters (8,327 feet) below sea level, which is the lowest point on the earth’s surface not covered by ocean, although it is covered by ice. The most extreme low-elevation point in the oceans is the Challenger Deep, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench: 10,911 m (35,797 ft) below sea level. The water pressure here is about 1095 atmospheres, more than 10 times the surface pressure of the planet Venus. The Challenger Deep has only been visited once by humans: Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard in 1960 in the bathyscaphe Trieste.
Other extreme points in the world involve temperature. In 1922, a temperature of 57.8 °C (136 °F) was measured in El Azizia, Libya. In second place is a temperature of 56.7 °C (134 °F) measured in Death Valley, California in 1913. With these temperatures, you probably want to spend most of your time in front of a heavy air conditioning unit.
The coldest extreme point in the world is Vostok station in Antarctica, located near the South Pole of Inaccessibility. A temperature of −89.6 °C (−128.6 °F) was measured there in 1983. Even colder temperatures were likely to have been reached in the area, near the top of the local ice sheet, as the temperature decreases reliably with the altitude.
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