Captain James Cook in HMS Resolution made the first landing, survey and mapping of the island, and on 17 January 1775 he claimed it a British possession, naming it "Isle of Georgia" after King George III.

The main settlement and the capital today is King Edward Point near Grytviken, a British Antarctic Survey research station, with a population of about 20 people.

[4] The mariner Captain James Cook in HMS Resolution made the first landing, survey and mapping of South Georgia.

Sealing era relics include iron try pots, hut ruins, graves and inscriptions, and the South Georgia Museum was established on the island in 1992.

The animals had been introduced by Norwegian whalers in the early 20th century for food and sport hunting, but were later seen as a pest, damaging the island's flora and wider ecosystem.

Karl Erik Kilander, the project manager, said the culled reindeer were frozen and taken to the Falkland Islands where they were sold to local residents and cruise ship operators.

[20] In 2018, after a multiyear extermination effort, the island was declared free of invasive rodents and the number of South Georgia pipits had clearly increased.

[21][22][23] In the central north coast, five years after poisoning the rats, the populations of snowy sheathbills, South Georgia pintails and Wilson's storm petrels had grown.

Iceberg A-38 grounded off the island in 2004, resulting in indirect but severe effects on local wildlife by disturbing life on the seafloor and blocking foraging routes of seals and penguins.