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This paper presents the current state of our knowledge about Antarctic blue ice areas. Scattered widely over the Antarctic continent yet covering only approximately 1% of its surface area, blue ice areas have some peculiar characteristics that make them of particular interest for planetary geologists, glaciologists, meteorologists, and climatologists. For instance, blue ice areas are subject to net ablation mainly by sublimation, since any accumulation is easily swept off their smooth surfaces by winds. Moreover, they are significantly warmer than their surroundings, and the wind over them is generally more gusty. An important feature of blue ice is its relatively low albedo (0.56) compared with that of snow (0.80). Blue ice is probably considerably smoother than snow (in the aerodynamic sense), with roughness lengths as low as 3 × 10⁻⁶ m, which indicates that blue ice is probably the only permanent natural surface over …