The Bering Strait is a strait between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, separating the Chukchi Peninsula of the Russian Far East from the Seward Peninsula of Alaska. The present Russia-United States maritime boundary is at 168° 58' 37" W longitude, slightly south of the Arctic Circle at about 65° 40' N latitude. The Strait is named after Vitus Bering, a Danish-born Russian explorer.
Cape Dezhnyov or Cape Dezhnev, formerly known as East Cape or Cape Vostochny, is a cape that forms the easternmost mainland point of Asia. It is located on the Chukchi Peninsula in the very sparsely populated Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of Russia. This cape is located between the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Strait, 82 kilometres (51 mi) across from Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska; the Bering Strait is delimited by the two capes. The Diomede Islands and Fairway Rock are located in the midst of the strait.
Chukotka, officially the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, is the easternmost federal subject of Russia. It is an autonomous okrug situated in the Russian Far East, and shares a border with the Sakha Republic to the west, Magadan Oblast to the south-west, and Kamchatka Krai to the south, as well as a maritime border on the Bering Strait with the U.S. state of Alaska to the east. Anadyr is the largest town and the capital, and the easternmost settlement to have town status in Russia. It is the closest point from Russia to the United States, measuring at 88.51 kilometres or 55 miles.
Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnyov was a Russian explorer of Siberia and the first European to sail through the Bering Strait, 80 years before Vitus Bering did. In 1648 he sailed from the Kolyma River on the Arctic Ocean to the Anadyr River on the Pacific. His exploit was forgotten for almost a hundred years and Bering is usually given credit for discovering the strait that bears his name.
The Diomede Islands, also known in Russia as Gvozdev Islands, consist of two rocky, mesa-like islands:
Big Diomede Island or Tomorrow Island is the western island of the two Diomede Islands in the middle of the Bering Strait. The island is home to a Russian military base which is located midway along the island's North shore. The island is a part of the Chukotsky District of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of Russia. The border separating Russia and the United States runs north–south through the 2.5 mile wide strait that runs between the two Islands.
Little Diomede Island or Yesterday Island is an inhabited island of Alaska. It is the smaller of the two Diomede Islands located in the Bering Strait between the Alaskan mainland and Siberia. The island has one town, also called Diomede.
The Chukchi Sea, sometimes referred to as the Chuuk Sea, Chukotsk Sea or the Sea of Chukotsk, is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the Long Strait, off Wrangel Island, and in the east by Point Barrow, Alaska, beyond which lies the Beaufort Sea. The Bering Strait forms its southernmost limit and connects it to the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The principal port on the Chukchi Sea is Uelen in Russia. The International Date Line crosses the Chukchi Sea from northwest to southeast. It is displaced eastwards to avoid Wrangel Island as well as the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug on the Russian mainland.
Cape Prince of Wales is the westernmost mainland point of the Americas. It was named in 1778 by Captain James Cook of the British Royal Navy, presumably for the Prince of Wales at the time, George Augustus Frederick. Discovered in 1732, by an expedition led by a Russian military geodesist Mikhail Gvozdev in Sviatoi Gavriil ; later, the cape was named by Vitus Bering for Gvozdev as Mys Gvozdeva. The Yupik name of the cape, published by Gavril Sarychev in 1826, was Nykhta. The current name was approved by a decision of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names in 1944.
The Seward Peninsula is a large peninsula on the western coast of the U.S. state of Alaska whose westernmost point is Cape Prince of Wales. The peninsula projects about 200 mi (320 km) into the Bering Sea between Norton Sound, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi Sea, and Kotzebue Sound, just below the Arctic Circle. The entire peninsula is about 210 mi (330 km) long and 90–140 mi (145–225 km) wide. Like Seward, Alaska, it was named after William H. Seward, the United States Secretary of State who fought for the U.S. purchase of Alaska.
Uelen is a rural locality in Chukotsky District, just south of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 720. Located near Cape Dezhnev where the Bering Sea meets the Chukchi Sea, it is the easternmost settlement in Russia and the whole of Asia. It is located in the Western Hemisphere, but the International Date Line curves around it, so it remains in a Russian time zone (UTC+12:00). Uelen is also the closest Asian settlement to North America. It is on the northeast corner of the Uelen Lagoon, a roughly 15 by 3 kilometres east-west lagoon separated from the ocean by a sandspit. Municipally, Uelen is subordinated to Chukotsky Municipal District and is incorporated as Uelen Rural Settlement.
A Bering Strait crossing is a hypothetical bridge or tunnel that would span the relatively narrow and shallow Bering Strait between the Chukotka Peninsula in Russia and the Seward Peninsula in the U.S. state of Alaska. The crossing would provide a connection linking the Americas and Afro-Eurasia.
UTC+12:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +12:00.
Cape Espenberg is a cape located on the Seward Peninsula in Alaska, on the Chukchi Sea coast.
Yttygran Island is an island in the Bering Sea 24 kilometres northwest of Cape Chaplino, close to the coast of Chukotka.
Chukotsky District is an administrative and municipal district (raion), one of the six in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. It is the easternmost district of the autonomous okrug and Russia, and the closest part of Russia to the United States. It borders with the Chukchi Sea in the north, the Bering Sea in the east, Providensky District in the south, and the Kolyuchinskaya Bay in the west. The area of the district is 30,700 square kilometers (11,900 sq mi). Its administrative center is the rural locality of Lavrentiya. Population: 4,995 (2021 Census); 4,838 (2010 Census); 4,541 (2002 Census); 6,878 (1989 Soviet census). The population of Lavrentiya accounts for 30.2% of the district's total population.
Providensky District is an administrative and municipal district (raion), one of the six in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. It is located in the northeast of the autonomous okrug, in the southern half of the Chukchi Peninsula with a northwest extension reaching almost to the Kolyuchinskaya Bay on the Arctic. It borders with Chukotsky District in the north, the Bering Sea in the east and south, and with Iultinsky District in the west. The area of the district is 26,800 square kilometers (10,300 sq mi). Its administrative center is the urban locality of Provideniya. Population: 3,923 (2010 Census); 4,660 (2002 Census); 9,778 (1989 Soviet census). The population of Provideniya accounts for 50.2% of the district's total population.
The Naukan, also known as the Naukanski, are a Siberian Yupik people and an Indigenous people of Siberia. They live in the Chukotka Autonomous Region of eastern Russia.
The Arctic Alaska-Chukotka terrane (AAC) is a microcontinent that today encompasses the North Slope, Brooks Range, and Seward Peninsula of northern Alaska; the Chukotka Peninsula, New Siberia Islands, and Wrangel Island in eastern Siberia; and the continental shelves of the Bering, Beaufort, and Chukchi seas. Comparable in size to Greenland, the AAC is the largest of the Neoproterozoic–early Paleozoic continental fragments now dispersed around the Arctic Ocean; some of which possibly formed the continent Arctida.
The Chukotka Mountains or Chukotka Upland, is a mountainous area in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Far Eastern Federal District, Russia.
