Cook Island (South Sandwich Islands)

Cook Island is an uninhabited island of 20 km² in the archipelago of the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic . With the Bellingshausen Island and the Morrell Island , it forms the group of the Southern Thul Islands . Douglas Strait separates it from Morrell Island in the west, and the Maurice Channel from Bellingshausen Island in the east . It is the southernmost major island that is not covered by the Antarctic Treaty . It is an important breeding area for numerous sea birds .

Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen named it during the first Russian Antarctic expedition (1819-1821). It is named after the British navigator James Cook , who discovered it in 1775 on his second voyage to the South Seas (1772–1775).

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