, image_name = Diomede Islands Bering Sea Jul 2006.jpg , image_caption = Diomede Islands: Little Diomede (left, U.S.) and Big Diomede (right, Russia) viewed from the north, looking south , map_image = BeringSt-close-VE.jpg , map_caption = Satellite photo of the Bering Strait, with the Diomede Islands at center , nickname = , location = Bering Strait , coordinates = , total_islands = 2 , area_km2 = , length_km = , width_km = , highest_mount = , elevation_m = , population = , population_as_of = 2011 , density_km2 = , ethnic_groups = , country = Russia / United States , timezone1 =

Alaska Time The Alaska Time Zone observes standard time by subtracting nine hours from Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−09:00). During daylight saving time its time offset is eight hours ( UTC−08:00). The clock time in this zone is based on mean solar ...

– UTC -9/ -8 , timezone2 =

Kamchatka Time Kamchatka Time or Petropavlovsk Time (PETT; russian: камчатское время, ''kamchatskoye vremya''), also known as Anadyr Time (ANAT), is a time zone in Russia, named after the Kamchatka Peninsula. It is 12 hours ahead of UTC ( U ...

–

UTC+12 UTC+12:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +12:00. As standard time (year-round) ''Principal cities: Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Mata Utu, Majuro, Yaren, Funafuti, South Tarawa on Tarawa'' North Asia *Russia – Kamchatka Time ...

The Diomede Islands (; russian: острова́ Диоми́да, translit=ostrová Diomída), also known in Russia as Gvozdev Islands (russian: острова́ Гво́здева, translit=ostrová Gvozdjeva), consist of two rocky,

mesa A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by ...

-like islands: * The Russian island of Big Diomede (part of

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug Chukotka (russian: Чуко́тка), officially the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug,, ''Čukotkakèn avtonomnykèn okrug'', is the easternmost federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia. It is an autonomous okrug situated in the Russian ...

), also known as ', ''Inaliq'', ''Nunarbuk'' or Ratmanov Island * The U.S. island of

Little Diomede Little Diomede Island or “Yesterday Isle” ( ik, Iŋaliq, formerly known as Krusenstern Island,

(part of

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

) or ', also known as Krusenstern Island The Diomede Islands are located in the middle of the Bering Strait between mainland Alaska and

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

. To the north is the

Chukchi Sea Chukchi Sea ( rus, Чуко́тское мо́ре, r=Chukotskoye more, p=tɕʊˈkotskəjə ˈmorʲɪ), 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 b ...

and to the south is the

Bering Sea The Bering Sea (, ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre) 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 Ameri ...

Fairway Rock Fairway Rock ( ik, Ugiiyaq) (Census block 1047, Nome, Alaska) is a small islet with mostly vertical rock faces in the Bering Strait, located southeast of the Diomede Islands and west of Alaska's Cape Prince of Wales. Part of Alaska, a U.S. st ...

, to the southeast, is also Alaskan, but generally not seen as part of the Diomede Islands. If marginal seas are considered, then they are the northernmost islands within the entire Pacific Ocean. Because they are separated by the

International Date Line The International Date Line (IDL) is an internationally accepted demarcation on the surface of Earth, running between the South and North Poles and serving as the boundary between one calendar day and the next. It passes through the Pacific O ...

, Big Diomede is almost a day ahead of Little Diomede, but not completely; due to locally defined time zones, Big Diomede is only 21 hours ahead of Little Diomede (20 in summer). Because of this, the islands are sometimes called Tomorrow Island (Big Diomede) and Yesterday Island (Little Diomede).

Etymology

The islands are named for the Greek

Saint Diomedes Saint Diomedes of Tarsus (Diomede) (Greek: Διομήδης ό Ταρσεύς, d. between 298 and 311 AD) is venerated as a Greek Christian saint and martyr, one of the Holy Unmercenaries. Life Diomedes was born in Tarsus. He was a physician ...

; Danish navigator

Vitus Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering (baptised 5 August 1681 – 19 December 1741),All dates are here given in the Julian calendar, which was in use throughout Russia at the time. also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering, was a Danish cartographer and explorer in ...

sighted the Diomede Islands on 16 August ( O.S., 27 August N.S.) 1728, the day on which the

Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

celebrates the memory of the saint.

Location

The islands are separated by an international border, which also defines the

in that area, about from each island, at 168°58'37"W. At their closest points, the two islands are about apart. The small habitation on Little Diomede Island is centered on the

west West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

side of the island at the village of Diomede. Big Diomede Island is the easternmost point of Russia. The Diomede Islands are often mentioned as likely intermediate stops for the hypothetical

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

( Bering Strait crossing) spanning the Bering Strait. During winter, an ice bridge usually spans the distance between these two islands; therefore during such times it is theoretically possible (although not legal, since travel between the two islands is forbidden) to walk between the United States and Russia.

History

The first European to reach the Bering Strait was the Russian explorer

Semyon Dezhnev Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnyov ( rus, Семён Ива́нович Дежнёв, p=sʲɪˈmʲɵn ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ dʲɪˈʐnʲɵf; sometimes spelled Dezhnyov; c. 1605 – 1673) was a Russian explorer of Siberia and the first European to sail through t ...

in 1648. He reported two islands whose natives had bone lip ornaments, but it is not certain that these were the Diomedes. Danish navigator Vitus Bering re-discovered the Diomede Islands while leading a Russian expedition on 16 August (O.S., 26 August N.S.) 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 Mikhail Spiridonovich Gvozdev (russian: Михаи́л Спиридо́нович Гво́здев; – after 1759) was a Russian military geodesist and a commander of the expedition to northern Alaska in 1732, when the Alaskan shore was sighte ...

, determined longitude and latitude for the two islands. The text of the 1867 treaty between the United States and Russia which finalized the Alaska Purchase 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." During the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, that gap constituted the border between the United States and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, and became known as the " Ice Curtain". In 1987, however,

Lynne Cox Lynne Cox (born 2 January 1957) is an American long-distance open-water swimmer, writer and speaker. She is best known for being the first person to swim between the United States and the Soviet Union, in the Bering Strait, a feat which has been ...

swam from one island to the other, and was congratulated by both

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

and

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

for her feat. In summer 1995, British television actor and documentary presenter

Michael Palin Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, television presenter, and public speaker. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. Since 1980, he has made a number of travel documentaries. Palin w ...

started his counterclockwise circumnavigation of the

Pacific Rim The Pacific Rim comprises the lands around the rim of the Pacific Ocean. The ''Pacific Basin'' includes the Pacific Rim and the islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Rim roughly overlaps with the geologic Pacific Ring of Fire. List of co ...

, encompassing 18 countries, on Little Diomede Island, as part of the BBC series '' Full Circle''. He intended to set foot on it again at the end of his eight-month trek, but was unable to do so because of rough seas. Big Diomede Island was traditionally the easternmost landmass before the International Date Line, and the first landmass to ring in a new year, if using local

solar time Solar time is a calculation of the passage of time based on the position of the Sun in the sky. The fundamental unit of solar time is the day, based on the synodic rotation period. Two types of solar time are apparent solar time (sundial ti ...

. When using official time, however, a large area in eastern Russia and New Zealand also share the same time zone. New Zealand also has

daylight saving time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time or simply daylight time (United States, Canada, and Australia), and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks (typicall ...

in effect during late December, but Russia does not (see

time in New Zealand Time in New Zealand is divided by law into two standard time, standard time zones. The main islands use New Zealand Standard Time (NZST), 12 hours in advance of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) / List of military time zones, military M (Mike), ...

and

time in Russia There are eleven time zones in Russia (within its internationally recognized borders), which currently observe times ranging from UTC+02:00 to UTC+12:00. Daylight saving time (DST) has not been used in Russia since 26 October 2014. From 27 March ...

). This became moot in 1995, however, when the International Date Line was moved to the east of

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

and that country's easternmost time zone ( GMT+14) is now the world's earliest. After they established a military base there in 1948, the Soviet government relocated the indigenous population of Big Diomede Island to mainland Russia. The island is now inhabited only by military units.

Little Diomede Little Diomede Island or “Yesterday Isle” ( ik, Iŋaliq, formerly known as Krusenstern Island,

had an Inupiat population of 170, which had declined to 115 at the 2010 census, entirely in the village site on the west side of the island, though the island as a whole comprises the city of Diomede. This village has a school, a post office and a store. Some residents are famous for their

ivory carving Ivory carving is the carving of ivory, that is to say animal tooth or tusk, generally by using sharp cutting tools, either mechanically or manually. Objects carved in ivory are often called "ivories". Humans have ornamentally carved ivory since ...

. When weather permits, commercial air contact is maintained with the island as part of the US Essential Air Service.

Notes

References

External links