The area was discovered on 22 February 1902, during the Gauss expedition of 1901–1903 led by Arctic veteran and geologist Erich von Drygalski. Drygalski named it after the sitting Kaiser Wilhelm II[1] who had funded the expedition with 1.2 million Goldmarks. The expedition also discovered the Gaussberg, a 370-metre-high (1,210 ft) extinct volcano, which was named after mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss.
The expedition became trapped in ice, preventing any further discoveries.[2]