Novosibirskiye Ostrova

Archipelago in the Arctic Ocean off the northeast coast of Siberia, Russian Federation. Administratively, it is part of the Sakha Republic. The islands that make up Novosibirskiye Ostrova are divided into three groups: the New Siberian Islands proper (area 29,000 sq km/11,196 sq mi); the Lyakhov Islands to the south (6,100 sq km/2,355 sq mi); and the northerly De Long Islands (228 sq km/88 sq mi). They are covered in tundra vegetation, and are home to deer and arctic foxes.

The southernmost island – Great Lyakhov, 55 km/34 mi from the mainland across the Dmitriya Lapteva Strait – was first visited by the Cossack explorer M. Vagin in 1712. The naturalist Lyakhov, after whom this group is named, went there in 1770 in search of the fossilized tusks of mammoths. The five northernmost islands were discovered by the American Arctic explorer George Washington De Long on his fatal last voyage in 1881 and named after him. There is no native population on the New Siberian Islands, but the Russians have maintained meteorological and hunting stations there since 1927.