If you ask most people which country is the coldest in the world, they’ll say Antarctica without even thinking about it. It’s almost automatic. And honestly,
it makes sense why people say that. Antarctica is freezing in a way that’s hard to imagine. Temperatures there have dropped lower than anywhere else humans have ever recorded. In the early 1980s, scientists recorded temperatures well below minus 80 degrees Celsius, and later studies suggested some parts might be even colder. So yes, if we’re talking purely about cold, Antarctica wins without competition. But here’s where the confusion starts. Antarctica isn’t a country. It’s a continent. There’s no government running the place, no prime minister, no elections, and no capital city. Scientists live there for research, but only for limited periods. Once their work is done, they leave. The continent itself is managed by an international agreement (Antarctic Treaty System) that says it should only be used for peaceful research. No single country owns it. So even though it’s the coldest place on Earth, calling it a country just isn’t accurate. Once you take Antarctica out of the equation, the answer changes. The coldest country in the world is Russia. Russia is enormous. It stretches across a huge chunk of the northern hemisphere, and a large part of it lies in Siberia. Winters there aren’t just cold for a few days. They last for months. In many areas, temperatures regularly fall below minus thirty degrees. During extreme winters, they drop down to -50°C or lower. There are places in eastern Siberia where people live through this every year. Oymyakon is one of them. It’s often mentioned because it’s one of the coldest inhabited places on the planet. Decades ago, temperatures there fell close to -67.7°C. Even now, winter temperatures hover around -50°C. And yet, people live there. Children go to school. Shops open. Life goes on. Another town, Verkhoyansk, has seen similar temperatures. These aren’t empty research stations. These are real communities. That’s the difference. Countries like Canada or Mongolia also experience brutal winters, but none of them combine such extreme cold with such large, permanently inhabited regions the way Russia does. So the simple truth is this: Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth, but it isn’t a country. Russia, with its vast, populated regions enduring extreme winter temperatures, holds the title of the coldest country in the world.
