Cockburn Island is a circular island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

 1 miles (1.6 km) in diameter, consisting of a high plateau with steep slopes surmounted on the northwest side by a pyramidal peak

Pyramidal peak

A pyramidal peak, or sometimes in its most extreme form called a glacial horn, is a mountaintop that has been modified by the action of ice during glaciation and frost weathering...

 450 m (1,476 ft) high, lying in the northeast entrance to Admiralty Sound

Admiralty Sound

Admiralty Sound is a sound which extends in a NE-SW direction and separates Seymour and Snow Hill Islands from James Ross Island, off the NE end of Antarctic Peninsula. The broad NE part of the sound was named Admiralty Inlet by the British expedition under Capt. Ross, who discovered it on Jan. 6,...

, south of the northeast end of Antarctic Peninsula

Antarctic Peninsula

The Antarctic Peninsula is the northernmost part of the mainland of Antarctica. It extends from a line between Cape Adams and a point on the mainland south of Eklund Islands....

. Discovered by a British expedition under Ross, 1839-43, who named it for Admiral George Cockburn

George Cockburn

Admiral of the Fleet Sir George Cockburn, 10th Baronet GCB was a British naval commander of the late 18th through the mid-19th centuries. He held important commands during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 and eventually rose to become Admiral of the Fleet and First Sea Lord.-Naval...

, Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, then Senior Naval Lord of the Admiralty.

See also

• Composite Antarctic Gazetteer
• List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands
• List of Antarctic islands south of 60° S
• SCAR
  Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
  The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research is an interdisciplinary body of the International Council for Science . It was established in February 1958 to continue the international coordination of Antarctic scientific activities that had begun during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58...
  
  
• Territorial claims in Antarctica