Berkner Island is about 150 km (93 mi) west of Luitpold Coast, Coats Land, the closest mainland of Eastern Antarctica.

Berkner Island was discovered by members of the United States-International Geophysical Year party from Ellsworth Station during the 1957–1958 season.

Ben Saunders has planned an unsupported journey from the island to the South Pole and back,[3] and it was the start point of Henry Worsley's attempt to cross the Antarctic in 2015–16.

[4] In the 1994–1995 field season, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Alfred Wegener Institute and the Forschungsstelle für Physikalische Glaziologie of the University of Münster cooperated in a project drilling ice cores on the North (Reinwarthhöhe) and South (Thyssenhöhe) Domes of the island.

[7][8] A 500 ha site on fast ice 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) north of the area where the Ronne Ice Shelf joins the north-western coast of Berkner Island, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) to the northwest of Gould Bay, has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because it supports an emperor penguin colony.