Kupreanof Island (russian: Остров Купреянова) is an island in the
Alexander Archipelago
The Alexander Archipelago (russian: Архипелаг Александра) is a long archipelago (group of islands) in North America lying off the southeastern coast of Alaska. It contains about 1,100 islands, the tops of submerged coastal m ...
in
southeastern
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
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., ...
. The island is long and wide with a total land area is , making it the
13th largest island in the United States and the
170th largest island in the world. The
Lindenberg Peninsula on the southeast side of the island is considered part of the island. The peninsula is separated from the rest of the island by a narrow inlet called
Duncan Canal. The island's population was 785 at the
2000 census.
The island was first charted in 1793–1794 by
James Johnstone and
Joseph Whidbey
Joseph Whidbey FRS (1757 – 9 October 1833) was a member of the Royal Navy who served on the Vancouver Expedition 1791–95, and later achieved renown as a naval engineer. He is notable for having been the first European to discover and char ...
, both part of British naval officer
George Vancouver
Captain George Vancouver (22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a British Royal Navy officer best known for his 1791–1795 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what a ...
's
1791–1795 expedition.
The island is named after vice admiral
Ivan Antonovich Kupreianov, governor of the
Russian American colonies from 1836 to 1840; the name was published in 1848 on a
Russian Hydrographic Department
The Russian Hydrographic Service, full current official name Department of Navigation and Oceanography of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation ( rus, Управление навигации и океанографии Министер ...
chart as "Os(trov) Kupreyanova".
The largest settlement on the island is
Kake
KAKE (channel 10) is a television station in Wichita, Kansas, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC and owned by Lockwood Broadcast Group. The station's studios are located on West Street in northwestern Wichita, and ...
, on the northwestern side of the island. The only other city is
Kupreanof, on the eastern side, across the
Wrangell Narrows
The Wrangell Narrows is a winding, 35-km-long (22 mi) channel between Mitkof Island and Kupreanof Island in the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast Alaska. The Wrangell Narrows is one of the six Listed narrows in Southeast Alaska. There are ...
from the city of
Petersburg on nearby
Mitkof Island
Mitkof Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago in southeast Alaska between Kupreanof Island to the west and the Alaskan mainland to the east. It is approximately wide and long with a land area of , making it the 30th largest island i ...
. The island lies within the limits of
Tongass National Forest
The Tongass National Forest () in Southeast Alaska is the largest U.S. National Forest at . Most of its area is temperate rain forest and is remote enough to be home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The Tongass, which i ...
(Petersburg Ranger District). The
Petersburg Creek–Duncan Salt Chuck Wilderness is a part of the forest that is located on the island.
References
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Islands of Alaska
Islands of the Alexander Archipelago
Islands of Petersburg Borough, Alaska
Islands of Prince of Wales–Hyder Census Area, Alaska