Timeline of New Zealand's links with Antarctica

thumb|A map of the [[Ross Dependency, the part of Antarctica claimed by New Zealand.]]

This is a timeline of the history of New Zealand's involvement with Antarctica.

Pre 1900s

;1838–1840

French and American expeditions, led by Jules Dumont d'Urville and Charles Wilkes. John Sac, a Māori travelling with Wilkes, becomes the first New Zealander to cross the Antarctic Circle.

;1895

New Zealander Alexander von Tunzelmann becomes the first person to set foot on Antarctica, at Cape Adare.

;1899

February British expedition led by Carsten Borchgrevink, including several New Zealanders, establishes first base in Antarctica, at Cape Adare. This expedition becomes the first to winter over on the continent.

;1911–1914

Four New Zealanders (H Hamilton, AJ Sawyer, EN Webb, and LA Webber) are members of Douglas Mawson's Australian Antarctic expedition.

;1923

Ross Dependency proclaimed on 30 July as a British Territory entrusted to New Zealand.

;1933

;1946

New Zealand joins the International Whaling Commission to help oversee whaling in the southern ocean.
United States Operation Deep Freeze begins to use Christchurch as a launching point for flights to Antarctica.

;1956

McMurdo Station established; construction of both Scott Base and Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station started.

;1957

20 January: Scott Base established in Ross Dependency.
The first New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition sets out to conduct explorations of the Ross Dependency. The expedition names several geographic features, including the Borchgrevink Glacier.
Hallett Station South of Cape Adare is established as a joint New Zealand-United States operation.
Bill Cranfield, John Claydon, and a New Zealand scientist arrived at the South Pole by air aboard a US Navy airplane;

;1958

4 January Edmund Hillary, leading an expedition using farm tractors equipped for polar travel, arrives at the Pole, the first expedition since Scott's to reach the South Pole over land; part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

;1959

1 December Antarctic Treaty signed with other countries involved in scientific exploration in Antarctica.
New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) established an Antarctic Division.
Hallett Station destroyed by fire. It is not rebuilt

;1968

;1969

Final New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition, which visited the Scott Glacier and named features in that area

;1972–1974

First solo voyage to Antarctica, by New Zealand-born yachtsman and author David Lewis

;1974

December Joint NZ-France expedition makes first ascent, and descent into crater, of Mount Erebus.
Antarctic Museum Centre opened at Canterbury Museum in Christchurch.

;1980

New Zealand is signatory to the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which comes into effect in 1982. Their plan to parasail back is abandoned.
30 December: The New Zealand Antarctic Medal (NZAM) is awarded for the first time

;2007

Prime Minister Helen Clark and Sir Edmund Hillary (aged 87) travel with an official party to Scott Base to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its founding.