South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI) is a British Overseas Territory in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote and inhospitable collection of islands, consisting of South Georgia and a chain of smaller islands known as the South Sandwich Islands. South Georgia is long and wide and is by far the largest island in the territory. The South Sandwich Islands lie about southeast of South Georgia. The territory's total land area is .South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, CIA World Factbook, 2002. The Falkland Islands are about west from its nearest point.
The South Sandwich Islands are uninhabited, and a very small non-permanent population resides on South Georgia. There are no scheduled passenger flights or ferries to or from the territory, although visits by cruise liners to South Georgia are increasingly popular, with several thousand visitors each summer.
The United Kingdom claimed sovereignty over South Georgia in 1775 and the South Sandwich Islands in 1908. The territory of "South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands" was formed in 1985; previously, it had been governed as part of the Falkland Islands Dependencies. Argentina claimed South Georgia in 1927 and claimed the South Sandwich Islands in 1938.
Argentina maintained a naval station, Corbeta Uruguay, on Thule Island in the South Sandwich Islands from 1976 until 1982 when it was closed by the Royal Navy. The Argentine claim over South Georgia contributed to the 1982 Falklands War, during which Argentine forces briefly occupied the island. Argentina continues to claim sovereignty over South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands as part of the Province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands.
History
South Georgia
17th to 19th centuries
The island of South Georgia was first sighted and visited in April 1675 by Anthony de la Roché, a London merchant and (despite his French name) an Englishman, who spent a fortnight in one of the island's bays. The island appeared as Roche Island on early maps. The commercial Spanish ship León, operating out of Saint-Malo, sighted it on 28 June or 29 June 1756.
James Cook circumnavigated the island in 1775 and made the first landing. He claimed the territory for the Kingdom of Great Britain, naming it the "Isle of Georgia" in honour of King George III. British arrangements for the government of South Georgia were established under 1843 British letters patent.
In 1882–1883 a German expedition for the first International Polar Year set up its base at Royal Bay on the southeast side of the island. The scientists of this group observed the transit of Venus and recorded waves produced by the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. Seal hunting at South Georgia began in 1786 and continued throughout the 19th century. The waters proved treacherous and a number of vessels were wrecked there, such as , in late 1801.Wheeler (2004), pp.26–27.
20th and 21st centuries
South Georgia became a base for whaling beginning in the 20th century. A Norwegian, Carl Anton Larsen, established the first land-based whaling station and first permanent habitation at Grytviken in 1904. It operated through his Argentine Fishing Company, which settled in Grytviken.La Infanteria de Marina en el conflicto del Atlántico Sur, Jorge Alberto Erecaborde. The original quote in Spanish is: "La Compañia Argentina de Pesca SA, al amparo de las leyes argentinas y bajo su bandera, se instala en Grytviken". The station operated until 1965. Whaling stations operated under leases granted by the Governor of the Falkland Islands. The seven stations, all on the north coast with its sheltered harbours, were, from the west to east:
Prince Olav Harbour Leith Harbour Stromness Husvik Grytviken Godthul Ocean Harbour
The whaling stations' tryworks were unpleasant and dangerous places to work. One was called "a charnel house boiling wholesale in Vaseline" by an early 20th-century visitor. Tim Flannery wrote that its "putrid vapors [resembled] the pong of bad fish, manure, and a tanning works mixed together", and noted one bizarre peril: "A rotting whale could fill with gas to bursting, ejecting a fetus the size of a motor vehicle with sufficient force to kill a man.""On the Minds of the Whales" by Tim Flannery, NYRB, 9 February 2012
With the end of the whaling industry, the stations were abandoned. Apart from a few preserved buildings such as the South Georgia Museum and Norwegian Lutheran Church at Grytviken, only their decaying remains survive. From 1905, the Argentine Meteorological Office cooperated in maintaining a meteorological observatory at Grytviken under the British lease requirements of the whaling station until these changed in 1949.
In 1908, the United Kingdom issued further letters patent that established constitutional arrangements for its possessions in the South Atlantic. The letters covered South Georgia, the South Orkneys, the South Shetlands, the South Sandwich Islands, and Graham Land. The claim was extended in 1917 to include a sector of Antarctica reaching to the South Pole. In 1909, an administrative centre and residence were established at King Edward Point on South Georgia, near the whaling station of Grytviken. A permanent local British administration and resident magistrate exercised effective possession, enforcement of British law, and regulation of all economic, scientific, and other activities in the territory, which was then governed as the Falkland Islands Dependencies. In about 1912, what is according to some accounts the largest whale ever caught, a blue whale of , was landed at Grytviken.The Island of South Georgia, The Whaling Museum, Sandefjord, Norway Whaling, South Georgia Heritage Trust
In April 1916, Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition became stranded on Elephant Island, some southwest of South Georgia. Shackleton and five companions set out in a small boat to summon help, and on 10 May, after an epic voyage, they landed at King Haakon Bay on South Georgia's south coast. While three stayed at the coast, Shackleton and the two others, Tom Crean and Frank Worsley, went on to cover over the spine of the mountainous island to reach help at Stromness whaling station. The remaining 22 members of the expedition, who had stayed on Elephant Island, were subsequently rescued. In January 1922, during a later expedition, Shackleton died on board ship while moored in King Edward Cove, South Georgia. He is buried at Grytviken. The ashes of another noted Antarctic explorer, Frank Wild, who had been Shackleton's second-in-command on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, were interred next to Shackleton in 2011.
Argentina claimed South Georgia in 1927.Headland, R. K. The Island of South Georgia, Cambridge University Press, 1984. p. 238. The basis of this claim and of a later claim in 1938 to the South Sandwich Islands has been questioned. During the Second World War, the Royal Navy deployed an armed merchant vessel to patrol South Georgian and Antarctic waters against German raiders, along with two four-inch shore guns (still present) protecting Cumberland Bay and Stromness Bay, which were operated by volunteers from among the Norwegian whalers. The base at King Edward Point was expanded as a research facility in 1949–1950 by the British Antarctic Survey, which until 1962 was called the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey.
The Falklands War was precipitated on 19 March 1982 when a group of Argentinians (most of them Argentine Marines in mufti), posing as scrap-metal merchants, occupied the abandoned whaling station at Leith Harbour on South Georgia. On 3 April, Argentine troops attacked and occupied Grytviken. Among the commanding officers of the Argentine garrison was Alfredo Astiz, a captain in the Argentine Navy who was convicted years later of crimes against humanity committed during the Dirty War in Argentina. The island was recaptured by British forces on 25 April, in Operation Paraquet.
In 1985, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands ceased to be administered as a Falkland Islands Dependency and became a separate territory. The King Edward Point base, which had become a small military garrison after the Falklands War, returned to civilian use in 2001 and is now operated by the British Antarctic Survey.
South Sandwich Islands
Captain James Cook discovered the southern eight islands of the Sandwich Islands Group in 1775, although he lumped the southernmost three together, and their status as separate islands was not established until 1820 by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen.Mills, William James. Exploring polar frontiers: a historical encyclopedia, Volume 2, p. 157, 2003. The northern three islands were discovered by Bellingshausen in 1819. The islands were tentatively named "Sandwich Land" by Cook, although he also commented that they might be a group of islands rather than a single body of land. The name was chosen in honour of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, who was First Lord of the Admiralty. The word "South" was later added to distinguish them from the "Sandwich Islands", now known as the Hawaiian Islands.
Southern Thule, at the south end of the island chain, is the southernmost land on Earth outside the area covered by the Antarctic Treaty.
Argentina claimed the South Sandwich Islands in 1938, and challenged British sovereignty in the Islands on several occasions. From 25 January 1955 to mid-1956, Argentina maintained the summer station, "Teniente Esquivel" (es) at Ferguson Bay on the southeastern coast of Thule Island. Argentina maintained a naval base (Corbeta Uruguay) from 1976 to 1982, in the lee (southern east coast) of the same island. Although the British discovered the presence of the Argentine base in 1976, protested and tried to resolve the issue by diplomatic means, no effort was made to remove them by force until after the Falklands War. The base was removed on 20 June 1982.
Languages The sole official language of the territory is English, which is widely spoken amongst residents currently and used for nearly all administrative functions in the territory. Although English is used in the majority of government functions, the islands' motto Leo Terram Propriam Protegat is in Latin and is translated as "May the Lion protect his own land". The adoption of new placenames was governed by the Place-names Ordinance of 1956 and Place-names Regulation of 1957 until 11 September 2020, when a representative was appointed to the regional Antarctic Place-names Committee and a new list of three criteria was created for deciding new names within the territory.
During British captain James Cook's navigation of the islands, he set a standard for the adoption of new names in the territory based on four categories: expedition sponsors, the names of officers and crew, notable contemporary events, and descriptive names referring to the physical nature of the place or geographic formation. This standard was mostly followed by later visitors in the region, including by explorers from different countries, such as Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, who selected six new names within the territory in his 1819–1821 Antarctic expedition.
Locations currently bearing names selected by Cook include Clerke Rocks, Possession Bay, and Bay of Isles, amongst others. Additional English names given many years after in recognition of past visits by American whalers in the territory include Morrell Point, Wasp Point, Pacific Point, and Comer Crag. Prominent Russian-language names chosen by Bellingshausen include the Traversay Islands, Zavodovski Island, and Visokoi Island (высокий meaning "high"). There is also a Lowland Scots language presence within the topography of the territory, with some locations being named after notable Scottish individuals, such as Geikie Glacier and Allardyce Range, amongst others.