Queen Elizabeth Land is a portion of mainland Antarctica named by the government of the United Kingdom and claimed as part of the British Antarctic Territory.

[3] The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, William Hague, said that the naming was "a fitting tribute at the end of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee year".

[3] Queen Elizabeth Land is nearly twice the size of the United Kingdom[3] and is essentially a triangular segment of Antarctica, with one vertex at the South Pole.

[4][5][6] The Pensacola Mountains, discovered in January 1956, run for some 450 km (280 mi) along a north-east to south-west line along the centre of the territory.

Argentina, whose Argentine Antarctica claim overlaps with the British Antarctic Territory, criticised the naming calling it a "systematic attack" and described it as "provocation" after recent tensions over Argentina's claim to the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, a British Overseas Territory.