of 1539 by Olaus Magnus, depicting the location of magnetic north vaguely conceived as "Insula Magnetu[LINK: m] [1]" (Latin for "Magnetic Island") off modern day Murmansk. The man holding the rune staffs is the Norse hero Starkad.]] The Earth's North Magnetic Pole is the wandering point on the Earth's surface at which the Earth's magnetic field points vertically downwards (i.e. the "dip" is 90°). The North Magnetic Pole should not be confused with the lesser known North Geomagnetic Pole, described later in this article. As of 2005 the North Magnetic Pole lay near Ellesmere Island in northern Canada at . Its southern hemisphere counterpart is the South Magnetic Pole. Because the Earth's magnetic field is not exactly symmetrical, the North and South Magnetic Poles are not antipodal: a line drawn from one to the other does not pass through the centre of the Earth (it actually misses by about 530 km or 329.3 mi).

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