Another fairly old map that I did, this one depicting the so-called 'Rush for Anatarctica' that occurred in the late 19th century.. This continent, so far away from Europe, the Middle East, and the 'civilized' parts of Asia, had remained in isolation for countless millennia with the native peoples having developed their own civilizations in complete bliss of the world that lay beyond the vast seas that surrounded the continent. That all changed in the final decades of the 17th century when the Dutch, through sheer chance and accident, stumbled across the great continent, the mythical southern land that had been dubbed 'Terra Australis' in times of old. Multiple expeditions were held by the nations of Europe to explore this mysterious land with the explorers bringing back fantastical tales of strange creatures, almost alien natives, and other wondrous things which sparked great interest in this land throughout Europe and even the Middle East.

Over the next two centuries, the European powers began to establish colonies in Antarctica, manipulating and defeating the local tribes and kingdoms in order to establish their own little dominions over the continent. By 1900, the major colonial powers in Antarctica were Great Britain, France, and Russia with various smaller colonies held by other nations from Europe and the Americas; the Ottoman Empire at one point held its own colony but had to sell it to Japan in order to pay off debts and ensure they didn't have to divert dwindling resources to defend a colony on the other side of an ocean. By 1945, the colonies changed hands as Germany lost its colony to the UK after the end of the Great War and Japan's colony was seized after much hard, ferocious fighting from 1942 to 1944. After the end of the war, mass colonial revolts and demonstrations were held as the colonies, one-by-one became independent from their distant masters. The Soviet Union maintained theirs only by transforming it from a colony into a full-fledged state within their union with the natives being granted full Soviet citizenship and it was only after the USSR's collapse in 1991 that what was dubbed 'Vostokia' by the Russians, finally became independent. The territories claimed by the United States, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and Norway are maintained to this day, merely as overseas territories though Brazil, Norway, and Chile integrated theirs as full states within their nations in 1978, 1983, and 1991, respectively. In the present day, the various Antarctic nations have their own alliances and relationships, both with each other and with the outside world, all depending on past relations and old tribal and kingdom rivalries and friendships.