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Orcadas Base is the first permanently inhabited base to have been built in Antarctica. It is located in the Laurie Island in the Orcadas Islands, 4 meters above the sea surface at 170 meters from the coastline. The nearest port is Ushuaia, which is 1502 km away. The base, that has 11 buildings, has four main science activities: continental glaciology, seismology, sea-ice-zone glaciology (since 1985) and meteorological observations (since 1903).
In 1903 Dr William S. Bruce's Scottish National Antarctic Expedition established the Osmond House, a meteoroidal station on Laurie Island. During the expedition, however, the crew managed to get stuck in the ice and, unable to sail off, were trapped in the station for the winter.
Bruce left the station in December of that year to Buenos Aires to fix the ship, leaving a few men to keep the observation running, and accords to leave the station to the Argentine government.
Since February 22, 1904, Argentina has kept a permanently populated base there, one of the six Argentine permanent bases in the Argentine Antarctica, and the first permanently inhabited base in Antarctica.
Orcadas was the only base on the islands for 40 years until the British established a small summer base. It also had the first radiotelegraph in the continent (in 1927). The 11 buildings of the base are inhabitated by up to 45 people during the summer, and by an average of 14 during the winter time.
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