Argentine Antarctica the first on the continent. On 18 December 2012, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom announced that the southern part of British Antarctic Territory (and Argentine Antarctica) has been named "Queen Elizabeth Land" in honour of Queen Elizabeth II. Argentina, which lays claim to part of the area, criticised the naming. In 2013 the Argentine Defense Ministry announced that Petrel Base will become a permanent base by 2015. The base will have an airport and logistics for transfer of passengers and cargo. The geographic structure of the Argentine Antarctica continues some features of the Patagonia, located to
Territorial claims in Antarctica of Antarctica in 1958. In Japan, the Japan Maritime Safety Agency offered ice breaker Sōya as the South Pole observation ship and Showa Station was built as the first Japanese observation base on Antarctica. France contributed with Dumont d'Urville Station and Charcot Station in Adélie Land. The ship "Commandant Charcot" of the French Navy spent nine months of 1949/50 at the coast of Adelie Land, performing ionospheric soundings. The US erected the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station as the first permanent structure directly over the South Pole in January 1957. Finally, to prevent the possibility of military conflict in the region,