Geographic North Pole

The Geographic North Pole, also known as true North, is the northern point at which the Earth's axis of rotation meets the surface. For other definitions of the North Pole, see North Pole.

Geographic North has a known fixed position, at latitude 90° North. In whichever direction you travel from here, you are always heading south.

The boundaries of Canada extend all the way to the Geographic North Pole. There is no land at this location, which is usually covered by sea ice. The first expedition to the pole is generally accepted to have been made by Navy engineer Robert Edwin Peary, his servant Matthew Henson, and four Inuit men, Ootah, Seegloo, Egingway, and Ooqueah, on April 9, 1909. However, some have estimated that Peary missed the pole by up to 30 km.

The first undisputed sight of the pole was in 1926 by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his American sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth from the airship Norge, designed and piloted by the Italian Umberto Nobile, in a flight from Svalbard to Alaska.