Glaciers exist on every continent except Australia, covering about 11% of Earth’s land surface. The vast majority of that ice sits in just two places: Antarctica and Greenland. But smaller glaciers dot mountain ranges from the Rockies to the Himalayas, and a handful even survive near the equator on peaks high enough to stay frozen year-round.
Antarctica and Greenland Hold Nearly All of It
About 99% of the world’s glacier ice is locked in just two massive ice sheets. Antarctica accounts for roughly 91% of all glacier ice on Earth, covering nearly 14 million square kilometers, an area about the size of the contiguous United States and Mexico combined. The Greenland Ice Sheet makes up another 8%, blanketing about 80% of the world’s largest island across 1.7 million square kilometers, roughly three times the size of Texas.
These two ice sheets together hold more than 68% of all the fresh water on Earth. They’re fundamentally different from the glaciers you’d see in a mountain valley. Ice sheets are continent-scale masses that bury everything beneath them, flowing outward under their own weight. Many drain into the ocean through tidewater outlets, where chunks break off as icebergs.
Mountain Glaciers Around the World
Outside Antarctica and Greenland, there are roughly 200,000 individual glaciers and ice caps spread across the planet, covering a combined area of about 750,000 square kilometers. These are the glaciers most people picture: rivers of ice flowing down valleys, clinging to ridgelines, or capping volcanic peaks. They form wherever snowfall accumulates faster than it melts, compressing over decades into dense ice.
The elevation where this becomes possible, called the snowline, varies dramatically with latitude. Near the poles, glaciers can form at sea level. In the tropics, permanent ice only survives above about 6,000 meters. That relationship between latitude and altitude explains why you’ll find glaciers on equatorial mountains but not on much taller peaks at lower elevations in warmer climates.
The major mountain ranges that host significant glacier systems include the Himalayas in Asia, the Andes in South America, the Alps in Europe, and the Rockies in North America. Asia holds about 0.2% of the world’s total glacier ice, while North America outside Greenland has less than 0.5%. South America, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, and Indonesia together account for less than 0.1%.
Glaciers in the United States and Canada
Alaska contains the vast majority of glaciers in the United States, including around 59 current and former tidewater glaciers that flow directly into the ocean. The tidewater glaciers of Glacier Bay alone have retreated over 100 kilometers since the end of the Little Ice Age. LeConte Glacier, also in Alaska, is the southernmost tidewater glacier in the Northern Hemisphere.
In the lower 48 states, glaciers are found in Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nevada. Mount Rainier in Washington carries more glacier ice than any other mountain in the contiguous U.S., with more than five times the glacier area of all the other Cascade volcanoes combined. Nevada’s lone glacier, Wheeler Peak Glacier, sits in Great Basin National Park. Canada’s glaciers are concentrated in Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and Nunavut.
Iceland and Northern Europe
Iceland punches well above its weight for glacier coverage. Its largest ice cap, Vatnajökull, spans about 7,700 square kilometers near the southeast coast and contains roughly 2,870 cubic kilometers of ice. Two smaller ice caps in the central highlands, Langjökull and Hofsjökull, each cover around 800 square kilometers. Together, these three ice caps hold over 90% of Iceland’s total ice mass.
Norway hosts the largest glaciers on mainland Europe, with ice caps and valley glaciers scattered along its mountainous spine. Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago far to the north, has extensive ice coverage as well. Smaller glaciers persist in the Alps across France, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy, though many of these have been shrinking rapidly.
Glaciers Near the Equator
Some of the most surprising glacier locations are in the tropics. Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, sitting just 3 degrees south of the equator, still has ice at its summit, though not for much longer. Aerial mapping in 2000 showed an 82% decline in ice coverage since 1912, and the remaining ice is only 20 to 50 meters thick in places, losing more than a meter per year.
The tropical Andes in South America hold more equatorial ice than anywhere else. Peru’s Quelccaya Ice Cap, the largest tropical ice mass in the world, has seen its main drainage glacier retreat at a rate of 155 meters per year since 1998. Other tropical glaciers exist in Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia. In Southeast Asia, a few small glaciers survive on the high peaks of Papua, in Indonesia’s portion of New Guinea, making it one of the only places near the equator at sea-level latitudes where glacial ice persists.
South America and the Andes
The Andes mountain chain, running the length of South America’s western edge, hosts thousands of glaciers from Colombia in the north to Patagonia in the south. The largest concentrations are in southern Chile and Argentina, where lower latitudes meet high elevations and heavy precipitation from Pacific weather systems. Patagonia’s two major ice fields, the Northern and Southern Patagonian Ice Fields, are the largest temperate ice masses in the Southern Hemisphere.
Further north, glaciers in Peru and Bolivia are critical water sources for millions of people, feeding rivers during dry seasons when rainfall drops off. Their retreat has significant implications for agriculture and drinking water in Andean communities.
The Himalayas and Central Asia
Asia’s 0.2% share of global glacier ice is concentrated almost entirely in the high mountain ranges stretching from the Himalayas through the Karakoram, Hindu Kush, Tian Shan, and other Central Asian ranges. This region is sometimes called the “Third Pole” because it holds more ice than anywhere outside the Arctic and Antarctic. Tens of thousands of individual glaciers feed major river systems including the Ganges, Indus, and Yangtze, providing water to over a billion people downstream.
These glaciers sit at extreme elevations, many above 5,000 meters, where the snowline in tropical and subtropical latitudes allows ice to persist despite relatively warm temperatures at lower altitudes. The Karakoram range is notable because some of its glaciers have remained stable or even advanced slightly in recent decades, bucking the global trend of retreat.