Next time you feel a little chilly or complain because your hands are cold, think about frigid Siberian winters. Or how it might feel to be in Vostok, Antarctica, where the lowest temperature on Earth was recorded in 1983 (a bone-chilling -89.2°C/-128.6°F). Yet, cloaked in snow and dripping with gleaming icicles, these wintry scenes can be as beautiful as they are brutal. Are you wrapped up warm? Then we’ll begin.
Oymyakon, in Russia’s Sakha Republic, is officially the coldest permanently inhabited place in the world, with a January average of -46.4°C (-51.52°F). The village also ‘boasts’ the record for the lowest recorded temperature outside the Northern Hemisphere (and outside Antarctica), at -67.7°C (-90°F).
Just 500 people live here, which is understandable given it’s often too cold to venture outside. If you do brave it, it’s so chilly your eyelashes might freeze and car engines need to be left running all day. Among the hardy residents are Yakut horses, whose long, shaggy hair helps ward off the cold.
The coldest temperature ever recorded was on the East Antarctic Plateau, a frozen ice ridge between Dome Fuji and Dome Angus, and it was a teeth-chattering (or perhaps jaw-freezing) -94°C (-137°F). These measurements are taken from satellite data that was collected from 2004 to 2016.
Even in summer on the plateau – which sprawls over an area around the size of Australia – it’s pretty much too cold to breathe, with average temperatures of -32°C (-25.6°F).
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Close to the border with Canada, International Falls revels in its reputation for being a little on the cold side. The city’s record low was in 1923 when temperatures plummeted to -55°C (-67°F). It’s so proud of being chilly, it fought Fraser, Colorado for the official title of ‘Icebox of the Nation’, winning in 2008.
It celebrates each January with the Icebox Days festival. Events at the freezing festival include games like frozen turkey bowling, moonlight skiing and the Freeze Yer Gizzard Blizzard Run, where participants brave some serious cold. It also has the questionable honour of the lowest average annual temperature, between 0 and 2°C (-32 and -36°F).
This Rocky Mountains town lost out to International Falls in the Icebox wars, but it can still be, ahem, proud of its bone-chilling temperatures. Fraser’s coldest month is January, with average lows of -20.8°C (-5.4°F). And it makes the most of those temperatures, especially at popular ski resort Winter Park which is buried under a mountain of snow each year.
In fact, the cold is a huge draw for the town. The surrounding areas are criss-crossed with trails where you can go snowshoeing or cross-country skiing. People also take sleigh and dog-sled rides, ploughing across the neck-deep snow.
Stunning images of the world's amazing snow and ice festivals
This small Idaho town is one of the coldest places in the continental US. Its lowest recorded temperature is -47.8°C (-54°F). It also had the most days with the coldest temperatures between 1995 and 2005.
If you’re going to be cold, it may as well be somewhere spectacular. Stanley is ringed by dramatic mountain ranges with towering, invariably snow-capped peaks. It's also surrounded by national forests including Sawtooth, with seemingly endless trails and wilderness roamed by grey wolves.
In another hotly contested category, Prospect Creek – north of Fairbanks – has the lowest recorded temperature in the US overall. Temperatures in the tiny settlement plummeted to -62.2°C (-80°F) in January 1971. The area was originally a mining hub and the base for the huge crew of people building the Alaskan Pipeline.
Ulaanbaatar is believed to be the world’s coldest capital city, with winter temperatures sometimes hitting icy depths of -40°C (-4°F). Even the annual average is what many of us would consider pretty cold, at -1.3°C (29.6°F). Yet, somehow, more than 1.3 million people manage to live there and face the daily freeze.
Visitors may want to minimise time spent outdoors and instead thaw out in museums and temples around the city. Just make sure you don’t have brain freeze if you visit the International Intellectual Museum which is all about puzzles, riddles and games.
Canada’s coldest city is also the sunniest, and that’s something locals in Yellowknife are pretty proud of. The capital city of Canada’s Northwest Territories, on the shore of Great Slave Lake, is located around 320 miles (515km) from the Arctic Circle and you can feel its chill. The coldest recorded temperature was -53.3°C (-63.9°F), while the winter average is -33.8°C (-28.9°F).
All the ice and snow, which dusts buildings and settles by the lakeshores, is wonderfully pretty, creating scenes worth getting a little chilly for. If you manage to catch the Northern Lights, which swirl green and purple during the long, clear nights from November to April, then it’s even more spectacular.
The record low temperature was -43°C (-45.4°F), measured in 2006, making it the second coldest capital city. The Ishim River, which winds through the city, tends to stay frozen from mid-November to April. Thankfully, it does warm up in summer with average June highs of 26°C (78.8°F).
The tiny Yukon village of Snag – close to Kluane National Park and Reserve in a valley of the White River – holds the record for the coldest recorded temperature in North America, at a spine-chilling -62.8°C (-81°F). It was set in 1947, when the team who went there to measure the temperature outnumbered the population (of around 10 people) two-to-one.
This eastern Siberian chiller, capital of the Russian republic of Yakutia, is one of the world’s coldest cities. With average January temperatures of -41.9°C (-43.5°F); temperatures below freezing for between six to eight months annually; and just 50 to 90 frost-free days per year, who are we to argue? Our teeth are chattering just thinking about it.
The city has attracted attention – and visitors – with its chilly charms. It sprawls out from the western bank of the Lena River, which freezes so solid in winter it’s considered a seasonal road. Icy attractions include the Melnikov Permafrost Institute, whose frigid underground tunnel is lined with fossils. If you can brave the frost outside, this is one of the best places to view the Northern Lights.
Few places embrace the chill as enthusiastically as Harbin, the capital of China’s Heilongjiang province. It’s known as Ice City due to its long and very cold winters, with temperatures recorded as low as -42.6°C (-44.68°F) and average January lows of -22°C (-7.6°F). But, instead of battening down the hatches and huddling under their duvets, people come out in droves for the Harbin Ice Festival.
The icy extravaganza draws millions of annual visitors and stretches over months from Christmas Day. Visiting during the festival is like taking a wrong turn through the wardrobe in The Chronicles of Narnia. In other words, it’s a fairy-tale land of enormous ice palaces and snow sculptures, illuminated at night like the aurora borealis.
Now discover the winter getaways within easy reach of the USA