Commander Islands

The Commander Islands (Russian Командорские острова / Komandorskije Ostrowa, so as Komandorski islands known) are a group of islands between North America and Asia on the southern edge of the North Pacific Bering Sea.

Geography

The island group in the Far East of Russia east of the Kamchatka Peninsula is geologically the westernmost part of the island chain of the Aleutian Islands dar. However, the distance to the nearest Aleuteninsel Attu is 325 kilometers. The Aleutian Islands, together with the Commander Islands, the natural boundary of the Bering Sea to the open Pacific, and with these a geological unit.

The land area of all islands combined commander is 1848 km ². By far the largest island is about 1660 km ² large Bering Island.

Administratively, the islands are the commander Rajon Aleutski ( Aleutian Raion ) of the Russian Kamchatka region. Administrative center is Nikolskoje on Bering Island.

Landscape

The quite mountainous island chain that has only a sparse vegetation, is of volcanic origin and belongs to the northern part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. From the volcanoes, some are active today - which is often accompanied by earthquakes. In the north, the terrain of the island group falls quite steeply into the deep basin up to 4096 m of the Bering Sea, in the south of the elongate and up to 7822 m deep Aleutengraben in the actual Pacific Ocean joins.

History

Even before about 10,000 years ago when the last ice age ended and the sea level was dropped too low, was located along the elongated Aleutian Islands and the Commander Islands, the interrupted partly by deep sea areas and east of Kamchatka by the very deep northern tip of the Kurilengrabens Bering bridge and at northern end of the Bering Sea ( Bering Strait ) the continuous land bridge Beringia, each of which the above-mentioned continents joined together. Via these connections came back then - according to today's popular theories - the first immigrants to North America.

The Commander Islands were discovered in 1741 by Vitus Bering in the wake of the Second Kamchatka. This ill Bering scurvy and had to be left with 28 men of his crew on one of the islands. All left behind died of the disease, the island was later named after the leader of the expedition Bering Island. Behring ship, the St. Peter suffered a little later shipwreck, where two men were killed. From the ruins, finally, a new ship was built, with which 46 survivors of the original 77 -man crew reached Kamchatka.

In the originally uninhabited islands Aleutian immigrants were settled for fur hunting around 1825 by the Russian-American Company. The settlers came primarily from the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Atka. Gradually also followed Russian immigrants. The population today, however, includes more than 1000 inhabitants.

Approx. 160 km south of the archipelago took place a process called Battle of the Komandorski Islands battle between Japanese and American naval forces on 27 March 1943.

Tourism

On 23 April 1993, the Government of the Russian Federation all Commander Islands and the surrounding maritime zone declared a nature reserve with a total area of ​​3,648,679 hectares (of which 95 % of water ). It is classified as a biosphere reserve.

From time to time run cruise ships to the islands.