Diomede Islands

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Satellite photo of the Bering Strait, with the Diomede Islands at center

Little Diomede Island (left) and Big Diomede Island

Closeup satellite photo (in false color) of the Diomede Islands

The Diomede Islands, also known as Gvozdev Islands in Russia (Russian: острова Диомида; ostrová Diomída), consisting of the western island Big Diomede, also known as Imaqliq, Nunarbuk or Ratmanov Island, and the eastern island Little Diomede, also known as Krusenstern Island or Inaliq, are two rocky islands located in the middle of the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia.

The islands are separated by an international border and the International Date Line which is approximately 1.5 km (1 mi) from each island. At the closest land approach between the United States, which controls Little Diomede, and Russia, which controls Big Diomede (part of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug), they are 3 km (2 mi) apart. Little Diomede Island is spatially coincident with the Alaskan City of Diomede. Big Diomede Island is Russia's easternmost point, while Alaska's Aleutian Islands are the westernmost point of the United States.

15 km southeast is Fairway Rock, which is usually not considered part of the Diomede Islands.

[edit] History

The first European to reach the islands was the Russian explorer Semyon Dezhnev in 1648. A Russian navigator (of Danish origin) Vitus Bering re-discovered the Diomede Islands on August 16, 1728, the day when the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the martyr St. Diomede (hence, the name of the islands). In 1732, a Russian geodesist, Mikhail Gvozdev, plotted the islands on the map (hence, another name).

The text of the 1867 treaty finalizing the sale of Alaska uses the islands to designate the boundary between the two nations: The border separates "equidistantly Krusenstern Island, or Ignaluk, from Ratmanov Island, or Nunarbuk, and heads northward infinitely until it disappears completely in the Arctic Ocean."

Because the International Date Line runs down the 4-km (2.5-mi) gap between the two islands, you can look from Alaska into "tomorrow" in Russia.

In 1987, during the Cold War, Lynne Cox swam from one island to the other. The Diomede Islands are often mentioned as likely intermediate stops for a bridge or tunnel spanning the Bering Strait.

In summer 1995, British television actor and documentary presenter Michael Palin started his counterclockwise circumnavigation of the Pacific Rim, encompassing 18 different countries, on Little Diomede Island, as part of the BBC series Full Circle. He intended to set foot on it again at the very end of his journey lasting nearly eight months, but was unable to do so because he was returning during the following winter (on the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Munro), and the sea became too rough to allow him and his film crew to land on the island.