The Balleny Islands form a chain of uninhabited, mainly volcanic, islands in the Southern Ocean streching from 66°15' to 67°35'S and 162°30' to 165°00'E. The group contains three main islands: Young, Buckle and Sturge, which lie in a line from northwest to southeast, and several smaller ones (Row and Borradaile Islands, Sabrina Islet, and The Monolith).

The Antarctic Circle crosses very close to Borradaile Island, in the eight kilometre channel between Young and Buckle Islands. Buckle Island and the nearby Sabrina Islet are home to several colonies of Adelie and Chinstrap penguins.

The English whaling captains John Balleny and Thomas Freeman first sighted the group in 1839: Freeman was the first person to land on any of the islands on February 9 1839, and it was the first landing south of the Antarctic Circle. The islands' area totals 400 km² and the highest point reaches 1524 m (the unclimbed Brown Peak on Sturge Island).

The islands form part of the Ross Dependency, claimed by New Zealand (see claims on Antarctica).