Norway was the first country to reach the geographic South Pole.
Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and four companions arrived at the pole on 14 December 1911. They used skis and sled dogs, planned carefully for polar conditions, and established supply depots along their route from the Bay of Whales.
Amundsen’s expedition defeated the British expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott, which reached the pole about five weeks later. Scott and his four companions died during their return journey. The race became one of the defining episodes in the heroic age of Antarctic exploration.
The South Pole is the southern endpoint of Earth’s rotational axis, not a fixed physical marker on ordinary ground. The ice at the pole moves several metres each year, so the marker at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station is repositioned annually.