Located in Eurasia, in the north of China, Point Nemo is the most inaccessible place on Earth.
Merely off the grid — a fashionable touristic phrase employed to denote out-of-the-way destinations, would be a veritable misnomer for this place. This is a spot which is off the 'off the grid'. So much so that, not even its discoverer, Hrvoje Lukatela, a survey engineer, had ever set afoot on it. He located this place in the ocean, using a computer program while searching for a landmass which would be farthest from any nearest land. It can be entirely conceivable that no human has ever crossed it at all.
Finding Nemo
Point Nemo is the remotest point on this planet. More elaborately, it is known as the Continental Pole of Inaccessibility.
Not only its formal name a dead away about the nature of the isolation of this place, its demotic name Nemo — derived from the Latin roots 'No One', is no different either. Incidentally, Point Nemo, also doffs its cap to the fictional character, Captain Nemo, created by French sci-fi novelist, Jules Verne, who appears in two of his classics, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and The Mysterious Island.
Lying in Eurasia at a distance of about 2,500 kilometres (1,553 miles) from the ocean, it is situated in north-western China, near the Kazakh border.
Closer To Astronauts Than Humans
The geography of Point Nemo is a very interesting one indeed. In every direction, it is surrounded by at least more than one thousand miles of the ocean. The nearest landmasses to this point are one of the Pitcairn Islands in the north, one of the Easter Islands to the northeast, and one island off of the coast of Antarctica to the south.
Now, if you compare the distance to that of the International Space Station, which is 415.22 kilometres (258 miles) from any point on Earth and at any given time, you will be surprised to know that the closest people to Point Nemo are actually not even on Earth but in space. It's the astronauts who are closer to the place than any earthlings.
No Non-human Life Either
These coordinates are scientifically described as 'the least biologically active region of the world ocean'. The area is in fact within an enormous rotating current that actively prevents the nutrient-rich water from flowing into the purported area. Known as the South Pacific Gyre, this phenomenon is instrumental in rendering any life in this part of the ocean — apart from the resilient small crabs that thrive near the volcanic vents of the sea bed and some bacteria — from germinating.
