The 10 coldest countries in the world

There are still places on Earth where the cold doesn’t come and go. From the wind-carved plateau of Antarctica to the treeless tundra of northern Canada and the high steppes of Mongolia, some countries endure cold not as a passing season but as a permanent backdrop. Average annual temperatures remain well below freezing. Infrastructure is built to withstand months of frost. Entire ways of life revolve around snow, ice, and the rhythms of a long, unrelenting winter.

But even the coldest regions aren’t insulated from climate change. In fact, many are warming faster than the global average—not in ways that erase the cold entirely, but in ways that destabilize it. Some years bring deeper snow and heavier storms. Others see the cold arrive weeks later than expected, or retreat sooner. Familiar patterns—once embedded in culture, farming, and daily movement—are beginning to shift. What’s changing isn’t just the degree of cold but its reliability. And in the coldest places on Earth, that loss of consistency may prove more disruptive than the rise in temperature itself.

Below, we share the latest on the coldest countries on earth and how climate change is projected to impact their ecosystems.

An Antarctic glacier as seen forom the melting Larsen B ice shelf

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The 10 coldest countries in the world (2025)

This list is based on 2025 average annual air temperatures, using data from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), NASA’s GISTEMP, Berkeley Earth, and NOAA’s Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN). These organizations compile long-term climate records from both satellite observations and ground-based monitoring stations.

1. Antarctica — Averaged -56.7ºC, or -70.06ºF
2. Russia — Siberia averaged -5.4ºC, or 22.3ºF
3. Canada — Northern regions averaged -4.8ºC, or 23.4ºF
4. Greenland — Recorded -3.6ºC, or 25.5ºF across the ice sheet
5. Mongolia — Annual average reached -0.9ºC, or 30.4ºF
6. Norway — Including Svalbard, averaged 1.3ºC, or 34.3ºF
7. Kazakhstan — National average reached 1.6ºC, or 34.9ºF
8. Finland — Averaged 1.9ºC, or 35.4ºF
9. Iceland — Climbed to 2.0ºC, or 35.6ºF
10. United States (Alaska) — Averaged 2.1ºC, or 35.8ºF in northern zones

The science behind the warming of cold places

It’s a well-documented phenomenon that many of the coldest parts of the world are also warming the fastest. This is due to polar amplification—a process where melting snow and ice reduce the Earth’s reflectivity. Bright, frozen surfaces typically bounce sunlight back into the atmosphere; when they melt, darker ground and ocean, which would otherwise be hidden underneath, absorb that heat instead, accelerating warming in surrounding areas. This effect is especially pronounced in regions like northern Canada, Greenland, and Siberia, where ice loss is increasingly year-round.

A 2022 study in Nature Communications Earth & Environment confirmed that the Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the global average. And while the Middle East may be heating more rapidly in summer extremes, Arctic and sub-Arctic regions are where the long-term rate of change is sharpest.