A beautiful group of islands are owned by the UK, but are 8,000 miles away in the Atlantic Ocean.

The South Sandwich Islands, discovered by Captain James Cook in 1775, are a collection of 11 remote and inhospitable islands in the southern Atlantic.

They are difficult to get to, with no commercial flights or ferries to the area, but visits by cruise liners to nearby South Georgia are becoming more popular.

The eleven islands are Candlemas, Vindication, Saunders, Leskov, Montagu, Zavadovski, Bristol, Visokoi, Bellingshausen, Cook and Thule

They have a number of active volcanoes including Mount Belinda, Mount Asphyxia and Mount Michael, which has a persistent lava lake, of which there are only eight in the world.

The South Sandwich Islands are home to lots of wildlife with king penguins, albatrosses, petrels, and one of the world’s largest colonies of chinstrap penguins. 

Many species of whales, dolphins and seals are also regular visitors to the waters around the islands. There are no native land mammals, though reindeer, brown rats and mice were introduced to South Georgia through human activities.

The South Sandwich Islands are uninhabited with the closest population being on South Georgia, though it is small and non-permanent. They regularly host officials and research station staff.

Toothfish are very important to the islands’ economy and Toothfish Day is celebrated with a bank holiday on September 4 every year.

The UK claimed the islands in 1905, 133 years after claiming the nearby South Georgia. Claims over the area were disputed during the Falklands War between the UK and Argentina in 1982.

Now they are one of 14 British Overseas Territories. They have a constitutional and historical link to the UK with King Charles as head of state but are not part of the UK itself.