Bouvet Island in the context of "Norway"

Norway has three dependent territories (Norwegian: biland), all uninhabited and located in the Southern Hemisphere. Bouvet Island (Bouvetøya) is a sub-Antarctic island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Queen Maud Land is the sector of Antarctica between the 20th meridian west and the 45th meridian east. Peter I Island is a volcanic island located 450 kilometres (280 mi) off the coast of Ellsworth Land of continental Antarctica. Despite being unincorporated areas, neither Svalbard nor Jan Mayen is formally considered a dependency. While the Svalbard Treaty regulates some aspects of that Arctic territory, it acknowledges that the islands are part of Norway. Similarly, Jan Mayen is recognized as an integral part of Norway.

Both Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land are south of 60°S and are thus part of the Antarctic Treaty System. While the treaty does not affect these claims, the only states that recognize Norwegian sovereignty also have Antarctic claims. Administration of the dependencies is handled by the Polar Affairs Department of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security in Oslo. Norwegian criminal law, private law and procedural law apply to the dependencies, as do other laws that explicitly state they are valid on the dependencies.

Peter I Island (Norwegian: Peter I Øy) is an uninhabited volcanic island in the Bellingshausen Sea, 450 kilometres (240 nmi) from continental Antarctica. It is claimed as a dependency of Norway and, along with Bouvet Island and Queen Maud Land, composes one of the three Norwegian dependent territories in the Antarctic and Subantarctic. The island measures approximately 11 by 19 kilometres (7 by 12 mi), with an area of 156 km (60 sq mi); its highest point is the ultra-prominent, 1,640-metre-tall (5,380 ft) Lars Christensen Peak. Nearly all the island is covered by a glacier, and it is surrounded most of the year by pack ice, making it inaccessible during these times. There is little vertebrate animal life on the island, apart from some seabirds and seals.

The island was first sighted by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen on 21 January 1821 and was named after Peter I of Russia. Not until 2 February 1929 did anyone set foot on the island, when Nils Larsen and Ola Olstad's Second Norvegia Expedition, financed by Lars Christensen, was successful. They claimed it for Norway, which annexed it in 1931 and made it a dependency in 1933. The next landing occurred in 1948, and the island has been subject to some scientific research and a limited amount of tourism. The island became subject to the Antarctic Treaty in 1961. Since 1987, there has been an automated meteorological station on the island. Three amateur radio DX-peditions have visited the island, and there are sporadic landings by tourists.

The Bouvet triple junction is a geologic triple junction of three tectonic plates located on the seafloor of the South Atlantic Ocean. It is named after Bouvet Island, which lies about 250 km (160 mi) to the east. The three plates which meet here are the South American plate, the African plate, and the Antarctic plate. The Bouvet triple junction although it appears to be a R-R-R type, that is, the three plate boundaries which meet here as mid-ocean ridges: the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR), the Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR), and the South American-Antarctic Ridge (SAAR) is actually slightly more complex and in transition.

Larsøya, sometimes anglicized as Lars Island, is a rocky island, less than 0.2 nautical miles (0.4 km) long, which lies just off the southwestern extremity of the island of Bouvetøya in the South Atlantic Ocean. It was first roughly charted in 1898 by a German expedition under Carl Chun. The Norwegian expedition under Captain Harald Horntvedt made a landing on the island from the ship Norvegia in December 1927, and named it after Lars Christensen, sponsor of the expedition.

Nils Larsen (19 June 1900 – 29 September 1976) was a Norwegian sea captain. Larsen is perhaps most associated with the Norvegia expeditions of Antarctica.

Larsen was born in Sandar, and became a noted whaler, captaining a number of whaling ships principally for Thor Dahl A/S of Sandefjord.He also served as a first mate on Norvegia expeditions of Antarctica financed by Norwegian whale-ship owner Lars Christensen. During these expeditions, Norway achieved annexation of Bouvet Island (1927) and Peter I Island (1929).