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.
Vitus Jonassen Bering, also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering, was a Danish-born Russian cartographer and explorer, and an officer in the Russian Navy. He is known as a leader of two Russian expeditions, namely the First Kamchatka Expedition and the Great Northern Expedition, exploring the north-eastern coast of the Asian continent and from there the western coast on the North American continent. The Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, the Bering Glacier, and Vitus Lake were all named in his honor.
The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and the Americas. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves. The Bering Sea is named after Vitus Bering, a Danish-born Russian navigator, who, in 1728, was the first European to systematically explore it, sailing from the Pacific Ocean northward to the Arctic Ocean.
Diomede is an incorporated town and is the only habitable area on Little Diomede Island. The island is located in the Nome Census Area of the Unorganized Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska. All the buildings are on the west coast of Little Diomede, which is the smaller of the two Diomede Islands located in the middle of the Bering Strait between the United States and the Russian Far East. Diomede is the only settlement on Little Diomede Island. The population is 82 people, down from 115 at the 2010 census and 146 in 2000.
Ivan Fyodorov was a Russian navigator and commanding officer of the expedition to northern Alaska in 1732.
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.
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.
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 Chukchi Peninsula, at about 66° N 172° W, is the easternmost peninsula of Asia. Its eastern end is at Cape Dezhnev near the village of Uelen. The Chukotka Mountains are located in the central/western part of the peninsula, which is bounded by the Chukchi Sea to the north, the Bering Sea to the south, and the Bering Strait to the east, where at its easternmost point it is only about 60 km (37 mi) from Seward Peninsula in Alaska; this is the smallest distance between the land masses of Eurasia and North America. The peninsula is part of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of Russia.
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.
Diomede is the name of at least four women in Greek mythology.
The Nordenskiöld Archipelago or Nordenskjold Archipelago is a large and complex cluster of about 90 islands in the eastern region of the Kara Sea. Its eastern limit lies 120 km (75 mi) west of the Taymyr Peninsula. The archipelago is part of the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of the Krasnoyarsk Krai administrative division of Russia.
Afro-Eurasia is a landmass comprising the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe. The terms are compound words of the names of its constituent parts. Afro-Eurasia has also been called the "Old World", in contrast to the "New World" referring to the Americas.
The Russian Arctic islands are a number of islands groups and sole islands scattered around the Arctic Ocean.
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.
Kurbat Afanasyevich Ivanov was a Cossack explorer of Siberia. He was the first Russian to encounter Lake Baikal, and to create the first map of the Russian Far East. He also is credited with creation of the early map of Chukotka and Bering Strait, which was the first to show the yet undiscovered Wrangel Island, both Diomede Islands and Alaska.
Mikhail Spiridonovich Gvozdev was a Russian military geodesist and a commander of the expedition to northern Alaska in 1732, when the Alaskan shore was sighted by Russians for the first time.
The first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth took place from August 1803 to August 1806 and was carried out on two ships, the Nadezhda and the Neva, under the commands of Adam Johann von Krusenstern and Yuri Lisyansky, respectively. The expedition had complementary economic, diplomatic, and exploratory goals.
The history of exploration by citizens or subjects of the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, the Tsardom of Russia and other Russian predecessor states forms a significant part of the history of Russia as well as the history of the world. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,850 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than a ninth of Earth's landmass. In the times of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire, the country's share in the world's landmass reached 1/6. Most of these territories were first discovered by Russian explorers. Contiguous exploration in Eurasia and the building of overseas colonies in Russian America were some of the primary factors in Russian territorial expansion.
