Severny Island

The North Island (Russian Северный остров / Severny ostrow, scientific transliteration Severnyj ostrov ) is one of the two main islands of the Russian archipelago of Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean.

It is equipped with 47.3 thousand km ², the fourth largest island in Europe. The North Island is surrounded to the west of the Barents Sea and in the east of the Kara Sea. From the South Island it is separated only by a very narrow strait Matotschkin crowd. The greatest elevation is 1547 meters high.

Due to its position 73-77 degrees North, it is heavily glaciated. The largest glacier mass has a size of 19,800 km ². Therefore, it constitutes the largest ice cap of the earth, greater are the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland called glaciation. These hundreds of small glaciers come together with 3900 km ². The ice is up to 400 m thick; many glaciers terminate in the sea and enter icebergs.

The island was once inhabited by the Nenets, however, were resettled in the wake of nuclear tests in the 1950s, mostly. Today, located on the island of a Russian army base and a port.

The first complete circumnavigation of the island succeeded Vladimir Rusanov in 1910 aboard the Dmitri Solunski.