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Top six records: The coldest places on Earth

14:00
21 January 2023

Top six records
The coldest places on Earth

Oymyakon winter forest in Russia© picture alliance

Do you know where the coldest place on Earth is? Take a look at our top six lowest temperature records to find out!

6. Prospect Creek, Alaska (USA)

Here's where you'll find the United States' all-time lowest temperature record, with a -62.2 in the January of 1971. Prospect Creek is now largely abandoned, but at the time was hosting oil workers who were building a pipeline.

5. Snag, Yukon (Canada)

This was the coldest ever temperature recorded in North America, right here in Canada with a mind-numbing -62.8C from February 1947.

4. Yakutsk, Russia

This city might sound familiar to you, neighbouring where a recent record was broken for one of the coldest January days in Russia (read here).

People walking through a frozen street in Yakutsk, eastern Russia.People walking through a frozen street in Yakutsk, eastern Russia. - © picture alliance

But the Siberian city of Yakutsk, is renowned as one of the coldest in the world for good reason. Temperatures bottomed out at -64. 4C in February 1981, but temperatures barely get above -30C throughout winter.

3. Northern Greenland

During a British North Greenland Expedition in the 1950s, temperatures at their base, a home-ruled Danish territory technically part of North America, fell to -66.1C.

2. Verkhoyansk and Oymyakon, Russia

In second place is a record low of -67.7, recorded twice in 1892 and again in 1933, making this the lowest ever temperature recorded in Russia. It's also the lowest temperature ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere and the coldest inhabited towns on Earth.

The village of Oymyakon (along with the town of Verkhoyansk) is also known as the Pole of Cold.The village of Oymyakon (along with the town of Verkhoyansk) is also known as the Pole of Cold. - © picture alliance

1. Vostok Station, Antarctica

Taking the official lead, a staggering -89.2C was recorded on July 21st 1983 by Soviet researchers. The temperature that day only rose as high as -66.7C, but it probably felt comparatively balmy by that point.

East Antarctica?

We mentioned that the lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth was disputed at -94.7C, and that was in East Antarctica during August of 2010.

However it can't hold the official number one spot, because it was recorded via satellite data and not a regular thermometer. So the title still stands with Vostok Station, but either way, neither temperature sounds too appealing.

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