Located roughly 230 miles west of the Outer Hebrides, Rockall is the eroded core of an extinct volcano standing just 17 meters above the turbulent North Atlantic Ocean. Despite its hostile environment, the tiny outcrop became a focal point of international territorial disputes in the 20th century due to potentially lucrative oil, gas, and fishing rights in the surrounding continental shelf. Though British commandos landed by helicopter in 1955 to raise the Union Jack, full legal integration arrived with the Island of Rockall Act 1972.
This legislation formally annexed the rock and made it part of the County of Inverness in Scotland. Ireland, Iceland, and Denmark contested Britain's claims, arguing that a rock incapable of supporting human habitation cannot generate an Exclusive Economic Zone under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Today, Rockall remains one of the world's most remote, disputed, and surreal territorial claims.