From Antarctica's remote Vostok Station to the bustling Russian city of Yakutsk, these places frequently see temperatures drop well below zero and are covered in snow and ice for the majority of the year.
Our planet is a vast and varied landscape of natural beauty. From tropical rainforests to arid desert regions, mankind has learned to adapt to the environment, make use of the land, and thrive. Yet, in some of the coldest places on Earth, the environment is too harsh for even humans to withstand.
Near the North and South Poles, temperatures dramatically plummet far below freezing. That’s part of the reason why there are no official permanent human settlements in Antarctica.
However, not all of the world’s coldest places remain untouched. Over the centuries, towns and research stations have appeared in the far northern regions of Russia, Canada, and Greenland, pushing the limits of human habitation.
Read on to discover more about 11 of the coldest places on Earth.
Yakutsk, Russia, The Coldest Major City In The World
Ilya Varlamov/Wikimedia CommonsYakutsk, a major city in Russia’s Sakha Republic.
Despite its frigid weather, the coldest city on Earth has a shockingly large population. Located just 300 miles south of the Arctic Circle, Yakutsk, Russia, is home to around 300,000 people who deal with temperatures that have reached as low as negative 84 degrees Fahrenheit. While summers are much warmer, with temperatures averaging in the mid-70s, the summer temperatures average in the mid-70s, winter in Yakutsk lasts roughly eight months, and residents live in below-freezing conditions from September until April.
Still, Yakutsk has established itself as an important city in Russia. It has a thriving film industry, a bounty of natural resources like gold and diamonds, and plenty of cultural attractions like the Mammoth Museum and Permafrost Kingdom — an underground display of ice sculptures that never melt. That said, Yakutsk is not a wintery utopia.
The city sits on a layer of permafrost, so most of the buildings are constructed atop concrete piles to prevent the warmth of the interior from melting the ground beneath and causing structural issues. During the coldest months, residents have to park their cars in heated garages or keep their engines running to ensure the gas doesn’t freeze.
Sometimes, a thick layer of “ice fog” even covers the city. This phenomenon occurs when the air is so cold that it can’t hold any more moisture, so water droplets from automobile exhaust, human breath, and combustion from things like power generation freeze into tiny ice crystals that remain suspended near the ground.
Schools do close when temperatures drop too low, but for the most part, the citizens of Yakutsk must face the chill on a daily basis. “You can’t fight it,” one resident told Reuters in 2023. “You either adjust and dress accordingly or you suffer.”
Life in Yakutsk certainly isn’t easy, but there is something remarkable about how its people have not just overcome the harsh conditions but learned to thrive.
