The Coldest Country in the World Is Below Freezing, on Average

Over our long history, humans have managed to thrive in a wide range of climates, from the very hot to the very cold. The modern world is different in many ways from the ancient, but we still live pretty much all over, in places that are sweltering and places that are absolutely frigid.

If you're wondering about the latter — the coldest country in the world and the runners up — we've got you covered. That is, we can tell you all about them; if you're going outside in one of these places, please bundle up!

10 Coldest Countries in the World

For this article, we'll be using data from the World Bank, which keeps reliable records of this and lots of other information, broken down by country. These temperatures are averaged over the 10 years spanning 2012-2022.

As we'll see, several of these are probably easy enough to guess, but some might be surprises. And the order might not be what you expect to see, either.

1. Canada (24.8 F / -4.0 C)

Canada, with its vast stretches of of tundra and boreal forest, is the coldest country in the world. With a massive amount of land near the Arctic Circle, it has long, brutally cold winters, bringing its average temperature way down.

2. Russia (26.4 F / -3.1 C)

Russia, to no one's great surprise, takes the title of the second-coldest country in the world. Winter temperatures in this country, which includes the enormous expanse of icy-cold Siberia, are seriously frigid.

Even Russia's southern regions — on the Western side of the country — tend to be on the chilly side, due to higher elevations.

3. Mongolia (34.5 F / 1.4 C)

Mongolia, located to the north of China and to the south of Russia, is the third-coldest country in the world, with an average temperature just above freezing. Frigid temperatures are recorded all winter long, and the mountainous terrain means that much of the country's landmass is high in elevation.

4. Iceland (36 F / 2.2 C)

The name kind of gives it away: Iceland is a cold place, on average, with harsh winters that bring lots of snow and (yes) ice.

Given that its climate is classified as subarctic, this should come as no surprise. However, Iceland's climate is moderated somewhat by the mild gulf stream, which brings warmer air.

5. Norway (36.7 F / 2.6 C)

We're now in Scandinavia, the best place in Europe to see the Northern Lights. Norway includes the most northern regions of Northern Europe, where the lowest temperatures come in the depths of winter and are far below freezing.

6. Finland (37.4 F / 3.0 C)

Norway's neighbor is Finland; as you'd expect, the winters here are also extremely cold, where temperatures dip as low as 22 degrees below zero (that's Fahrenheit, which translates to minus 30 degrees Celsius).

While the north is the coldest region, the south of Finland also has quite frigid winters. Although tied with the next country on our list, Finland's historical average — taken over a longer timeline — is slightly colder, hence its ranking.

7. Kyrgyzstan (37.4 F / 3.0 C)

Kyrgyzstan, located in central Asia, is a country with wide temperature variation, due to its unique topography.

The lower-lying regions have very hot summers, where temperatures rarely drop into the chilly. But the northern regions, especially in the highest elevations, are buffeted by cold winds and very low winter temperatures.

8. Sweden (38.5 F / 3.6 C)

Sweden, another Scandinavian country, is, like its neighbors, known for very severe winters. But also like its neighbors, which run lengthwise from north to south, the regional differences are considerable.

Much of the country has a temperate continental climate, although the northernmost regions, at high elevation, get seriously cold.

9. Tajikistan (40 F / 4.2 C)

Tajikistan, a central Asian country that borders Kyrgyzstan, is another country with a highly variable climate, although the very cold winters push it towards the colder, on average.

In the warmer regions, the surface air temperature sometimes exceeds 104 F (40 C), but in the cold Pamir mountains, it can get down to minus 58 F (minus 50 C).

10. Estonia (44.2 F / 6.8 C)

Estonia, a country that's across the Baltic sea from Sweden and across the Gulf of Finland from Finland, has a milder climate than either of those two countries.

A relatively high-latitude state, it would be higher up on our list if not for the moderating effect of the Atlantic Ocean currents, which bring warmer air inland.

Calculating Average Annual Temperature

To determine the coldest countries in the world, we looked at average yearly temperature, also known as mean temperature.

This is a simple calculation you might recall from math class: Take all the monthly temperatures (or even daily temperatures, depending on how much data you can get), add them all together and then divide by the number of readings you have.

This gives you the mean temperature or average temperature of a place. Note that most countries in the world — even the ones that topped our list — can still have warm summers or regions that are relatively hot. But if they have enough land mass that gets cold, and that stays cold for a while, this will push their average yearly temperature down.

Also note that this doesn't take into account isolated records of extreme cold, which can by caused by unusual weather conditions. By looking at average temperatures, we're getting the best picture of what countries are, on average, the coldest.

What Influences a Country's Temperature?

When looking at a country's average year round temperature, there are two factors that play a major role. Weather and local climate conditions will also influence the temperature, but the big two items are:

1. Elevation: Generally, the higher above sea level, the colder a place will be. Countries with very mountainous topographies tend to be colder, since they're higher up in the atmosphere, where the atmosphere is thinner and retains less heat.

2. Latitude: In the Northern Hemisphere (where all of our countries on this list are found), the coldest temperature comes in the winter months of December through March. The closer to the pole (in this case, the North Pole), the lower the temperatures will be in the cold and dark winter. This is due to the Earth tilting away from the sun during these months.

Original article: The Coldest Country in the World Is Below Freezing, on Average

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