Christmas cards and Coke commercials can be blamed for the misconception that polar bears and penguins live in the same frigid neighborhood. If penguins of the Antarctic and Artic-dwelling polar bears ever did cross the same frozen paths, the waddling birds would make for very easy prey for the giant bears. But since penguins needn’t worry about land predators, they have adapted their wings into paddle-like flippers to maneuver through the ocean.
The Arctic region is essentially a frozen ocean surrounded by land. Conversely, Antarctica is a continent—with mountain ranges and lakes—surrounded by an ocean. Socially and politically, though, the Arctic region includes the northern territories of Canada, Greenland (a territory of Denmark), Russia, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the United States.