section_path: Politics/Territorial claims
section_name: Territorial claims
paragraph_text: Territorial claims
  
  In 1539, the King of Spain, Charles V, created the Governorate of Terra Australis, which encompassed lands south of the Strait of Magellan and thus theoretically Antarctica, the existence of which was only hypothesized at the time, granting this Governorate to Pedro Sancho de la Hoz, who in 1540 transferred the title to the conquistador Pedro de Valdivia. Spain claimed all the territories to the south of the Strait of Magellan until the South Pole, with eastern and western borders to these claims specified in the Treaty of Tordesillas and Zaragoza respectively. In 1555 the claim was incorporated to Chile.
  
  In the present, sovereignty over regions of Antarctica is claimed by seven countries. While a few of these countries have mutually recognised each other's claims, the validity of the claims is not recognised universally. New claims on Antarctica have been suspended since 1959, although in 2015, Norway formally defined Queen Maud Land as including the unclaimed area between it and the South Pole.
  
  The Argentine, British, and Chilean claims overlap and have caused friction. In 2012, after the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office designated a previously unnamed area Queen Elizabeth Land in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II 's Diamond Jubilee, the Argentine government protested against the claim. The UK passed some of the areas it claimed to Australia and New Zealand after they achieved independence. The claims by Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, and Norway do not overlap and are recognised by each other. Other member nations of the Antarctic Treaty do not recognise any claim, yet have shown some form of territorial interest in the past.