Denmark Lays Claim to North Pole, Files Submission with UN

Denmark is laying claim to the North Pole. The country is the fourth one behind Russia, Canada and Norway to make such an assertion.

Denmark filed a submission with the United Nations Monday laying claim to the territory saying that the area surrounding the North Pole is connected to the continental shelf of Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory

 Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard called the submission a "historic and important milestone" for his country.

"The objective of this huge project is to define the outer limits of our continental shelf and thereby -- ultimately -- of the Kingdom of Denmark," reports BBC

The focus of the dispute is the Lomonosov Ridge, a 1,800km-long (1,120 miles) underwater mountain range that splits the Arctic in two.

The other nations have agreed that the UN can decide on the issue. Russia and Norway have filed similar claims but Canada is yet to do so. The Arctic region is a resource rich region and as such many countries are interested in its potential.

A 2008  U.S. geological report revealed that almost 30 percent of the world's undiscovered gas and 13 percent of its oil was buried in this region.

"That these countries have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the determination of their outer limits tells us how important the Arctic has become," Rob Huebert, Arctic expert at the University of Calgary, told the Financial Times. "The Great Game is moving to the north."

Denmark spent $55 million and 12 years compiling information to support its claim. But the dispute might take a long time to settle under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, an international agreement that came into force in 1994.