5 Coldest Places on Earth
Earth's coldest places sit in a small club. Six locations regularly post sustained winter air temperatures below −50°F (−46°C), and a handful have crossed −90°F (−68°C) during peak winter. All but one are in the Northern Hemisphere; the absolute coldest is Antarctic. The thermometer numbers are part of the story — the rest is what happens when cold this severe meets human infrastructure, daily commutes, schools, and the ordinary mechanics of living.
This 2026 update covers five of the coldest year-round inhabited or continuously operational places on Earth, with context on what life and work actually look like there. Sources include station records from Roshydromet, Environment Canada, the British Antarctic Survey, and direct resident interviews where available. Where measurement methodologies differ between station instruments and remote-sensing satellites, we note it explicitly.
Cold this severe changes everything about how a place functions. Diesel fuel gels below −40°F unless treated with anti-gel additive. Steel becomes brittle and fractures under stress that would deform it warm. Tire rubber stiffens to the point of cracking. Exposed skin freezes in under a minute. Communities that exist in these zones do so deliberately and at significant cost — energy alone makes up 30 to 50 percent of a typical household budget, and most infrastructure is purpose-engineered for the climate.
How we ranked the world's coldest places
Five places ranked by sustained winter air temperature averages from 2020 through 2025, cross-referenced with absolute record lows. We weighted year-round livability over single record events. A place that hits a once-in-a-century −100°F but averages −10°F doesn't earn a spot on this list; a place that consistently averages −50°F in January does.
Records can be misleading. Vostok Station hit −128.6°F in July 1983, but that was a single observation made during a polar vortex collapse. Day-to-day Vostok averages in winter run −85°F to −95°F — extraordinary but consistent. The list below favors that kind of sustained cold over flash records. We also weighted human presence. Remote-sensing record holders (the East Antarctic Plateau registered −135.8°F via satellite in 2010) are uninhabited and operate at different physical limits.
Vostok Station, Antarctica is the most extreme on this list. Russian research station on the East Antarctic ice sheet at 11,444 feet elevation. Holds the coldest reliably recorded air temperature on Earth at −128.6°F, set on July 21, 1983. Winter averages around −85°F. Continuously occupied by researchers since 1957, currently 12 to 25 personnel year-round. Reachable only by Antarctic surface traverse from Mirny Station on the coast, a two-month journey each way.
Verkhoyansk and Oymyakon, both in eastern Siberia, compete for the coldest-permanently-inhabited title. Verkhoyansk has a population around 1,100 and a January average near −49°F (record −90°F set in 1885). Oymyakon is smaller — around 500 people — with a January average of −58°F and a record of −96°F set in 1933. Both sit in mountain basins that trap cold air for weeks. Both hit 90°F or higher in July, giving them annual temperature swings of nearly 180 degrees. Eureka in Nunavut and Snag in the Yukon round out the list with North American record cold.
The cold here doesn't pass through. It settles in for months. Diesel won't flow, batteries fail, breath freezes mid-air. You build your life around it or you leave.
Living in extreme cold
Sustained cold below −40°F changes daily life completely. Heating dominates the household budget. Vehicles require block heaters running continuously when parked outdoors. Children attend school as long as ambient temperatures remain above roughly −55°F. Indigenous communities — Yakut, Even, and Yukaghir peoples in eastern Siberia, Inuit in the Canadian high Arctic — have generations of cold-adapted culture, clothing, diet, and architecture. Newcomers, even those arriving from cold climates like Moscow or Anchorage, typically take two to three winters to fully adjust physically and behaviorally.
