What Is The Arctic Circle?

The Arctic Circle is essentially all the land mass around the North Pole at approximately 67 degrees north and above.

Northern Canada, Siberia and Northern Scandinavia all lie within the Arctic Circle. Although a very cold and hostile environment, the Arctic Circle is a permanent home for a variety of indigenous peoples including the Inuit and the Sami who have lived and thrived in the region for many thousands of years.

Winters are extremely harsh, with the thermometer plunging to as low as minus 40 degrees during the long dark winters. In the winter there can be as little as an hour or two of daylight or none at all in the most northerly areas. By contrast, in the summer it never gets truly dark, hence the Arctic Circle's nickname of Land of the Midnight Sun.

The Arctic Circle is in reality only an imaginary line that runs around the North Pole. The line denotes areas where the sun does not set on June 21and does not rise on December 21.

There is also a Antarctic Circle and this surrounds the South  Pole from 67 degrees south.