Who Owns Antarctica?

It stretches 5.4 million square miles, it's freezing, inhospitable. And devoid of any native residents. Why then is the continent at the center of such contentious wrangling?

Antarctica was first explored in the early 1800s, and although there are no permanent settlements, many countries have made territorial claims. The Antarctic Treaty of 1959, signed by 12 nations, prohibited military operations on the continent and provided for the interchange of scientific data.