Wrangel Island

Island in the Arctic Ocean belonging to the Russian Federation; it lies between the East Siberian and Chukotsk Seas and covers an area of 7,300 sq km/2,819 sq mi. The terrain of the island is rugged and inhospitable, with mountains rising to 1,096 m/3,596 ft. A trading post at the settlement of Ushakovskoye and a meteorological station account for the island's few inhabitants.

A Russian naval officer, Baron Ferdinand von Wrangel, first postulated the island's existence in 1824, but failed to find it. It was first sighted in 1867 by an American, Thomas Long, who named it after Wrangel. After initial exploration in 1911, Russia claimed the island in 1924 and established a group of settlers, who forcibly evicted some Inuit settlers placed there by the USA the previous year pending a territorial claim.