Is this really a world geography fact?

Yes. It sits on the World Geography shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

The magnetic north pole keeps drifting

It has wandered across the Arctic at accelerating speed and now sits well away from the geographic pole The pole is a moving point where the field points straight down, not a fixed landmark. It has shifted from Canada towards Siberia over recent decades, forcing periodic updates to navigation models. The field itself reverses polarity over hundreds of thousands of years. It sits in Mondo's world geography collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

Go further

World Geography trivia Science trivia

More facts like this

There are three different kinds of northTrue north, magnetic north and grid north point in different directions depending on where you stand A compass points to magnetic north, not true northThe gap between the two directions is called declination and varies by location Birds sense Earth's magnetic field to find their wayA light sensitive protein in the eye may let them see the field Greenland is the largest non-continental island in the worldCovering over two million square kilometres, roughly eighty per cent of Greenland is blanketed by a permanent ice sheet.Reykjavik is the northernmost sovereign national capitalLocated in southwestern Iceland, Reykjavik lies at a latitude of 64 degrees north, just below the Arctic Circle.The Svalbard Global Seed Vault protects crop diversity in permafrostBuilt deep inside a Norwegian Arctic mountain, the vault stores back-up seeds from around the globe.

Tags: navigation, magnetism, arctic

The magnetic north pole keeps drifting: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: It has wandered across the Arctic at accelerating speed and now sits well away from the geographic pole. The figure is taken from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a world geography fact?: Yes. It sits on the World Geography shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.