The North Pole is in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, while the South Pole is on a stable piece of land. Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station Compared to the North Pole, the South Pole is relatively easy to travel to and study. Today, the ice sheet above the South Pole drifts about 10 meters (33 feet) every year. Millions of years ago, land that today is the east coast of South America was at the South Pole. Over billions of years, Earth's continents have shifted together and drifted apart. Plate tectonics is the process of large slabs of Earth's crust moving slowly around the planet, bumping into and pulling apart from one another.

Due to plate tectonics, the exact location of the South Pole is constantly moving. This means the region experiences up to 24 hours of sunlight in the summer and 24 hours of darkness in the winter. From the South Pole, the sun is always above the horizon in the summer and below the horizon in the winter. In fact, the South Pole experiences only one sunrise (at the September equinox) and one sunset (at the March equinox) every year. Because Earth rotates on a tilted axis as it revolves around the sun, sunlight is experienced in extremes at the poles.

That temperature was recorded at the Russian Vostok Research Station, about 1,300 kilometers (808 miles) away. The coldest temperature recorded at the South Pole, -82.8 degrees Celsius (-117.0 degrees Fahrenheit), is still warmer than the coldest temperature ever recorded, -89.2 degrees Celsius (-128.6 degrees Fahrenheit). The South Pole is close to the coldest place on Earth. In fact, the warmest temperature ever recorded at the South Pole was a freezing -12.3 degrees Celsius (9.9 degrees Fahrenheit). This elevation makes the South Pole much colder than the North Pole, which sits in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Although land at the South Pole is only about a hundred meters above sea level, the ice sheet above it is roughly 2,700-meters (9,000-feet) thick. The South Pole is located on Antarctica, one of Earth's seven continents. Its latitude is 90 degrees south, and all lines of longitude meet there (as well as at the North Pole).

From the South Pole, all directions are north. It is the precise point of the southern intersection of Earth's axis and Earth's surface. The South Pole is the southernmost point on Earth.

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