West Antarctica is among the fastest growing areas in the world

The icy continent today would be unrecognisable to observers from the 20th century. Its northern peninsula is now home to a multitude of towns and conurbations, with a total population numbering in the millions.

Melting of surface ice has resulted in conditions appropriate for large-scale human settlement.* Even farming and crop growing is now possible in some of the most northerly areas. Air temperatures in the polar regions have increased more than anywhere else in the world, meaning that parts of Antarctica are now comparable with the climates of Alaska, Iceland and northern Scandinavia.

Huge levels of immigration are now underway from countries all over the world that have been affected by climate change, creating a diverse mixture of people and cultures flocking to this new land of opportunity. In some ways, the settlement of Antarctica is similar to that of America in the 18th and 19th centuries. The highest density cities are becoming cultural "melting pots" similar to New York and London.