Big Diomede Island is an unpopulated island among the Diomede Islands

Diomede Islands

The Diomede Islands , also known in Russia as Gvozdev Islands , consist of two rocky, tuya-like islands:* The U.S. island of Little Diomede or, in its native language, Ignaluk , and* The Russian island of Big Diomede , also known as Imaqliq,...

 in the middle of the Bering Strait

Bering Strait

The Bering Strait , known to natives as Imakpik, is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, the easternmost point of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, USA, the westernmost point of the North American continent, with latitude of about 65°40'N,...

. The island is a part of the Chukotsky District

Chukotsky District

Chukotsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the six in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. It is the easternmost district of the autonomous okrug and the closest part of Russia to the United States. It borders with the Chukchi Sea in the north, the Bering Sea in the...

 of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug , or Chukotka , is a federal subject of Russia located in the Russian Far East.Chukotka has a population of 53,824 according to the 2002 Census, and a surface area of . The principal town and the administrative center is Anadyr...

 of Russia.

Geography

Big Diomede Island is located about 45 km (28 mi) southeast of Cape Dezhnev

Cape Dezhnev

Cape Dezhnyov or Cape Dezhnev is a cape that forms the eastmost mainland point of Eurasia. It is located on the Chukchi Peninsula in the very thinly populated Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of Russia. This cape is located between the Bering Sea and the Chukchi Sea, across from Cape Prince of Wales in...

 on the Chukchi Peninsula

Chukchi Peninsula

The Chukchi Peninsula, Chukotka Peninsula or Chukotski Peninsula , at about 66° N 172° W, is the northeastern extremity of Asia. Its eastern end is at Cape Dezhnev near the village of Uelen. It is bordered by the Chukchi Sea to the north, the Bering Sea to the south, and the Bering Strait to the...

 and is Russia's easternmost point

Extreme points of Russia

This is a list of the extreme points and extreme elevations in Russia.The northernmost and easternmost points of Russia coincide with those of Eurasia ....

. The coordinates are 65°46′52"N 169°03′25"W. The rocky tuya

Tuya

A tuya is a type of distinctive, flat-topped, steep-sided volcano formed when lava erupts through a thick glacier or ice sheet. They are somewhat rare worldwide, being confined to regions which were covered by glaciers and also had active volcanism during the same time period.-Formation:Tuyas are...

-type island has an area of about 29 km² (11.2 sq mi) The International Date Line

International Date Line

The International Date Line is a generally north-south imaginary line on the surface of the Earth, passing through the middle of the Pacific Ocean, that designates the place where each calendar day begins...

 is about 1.3 km (0.807784557644749 mi) east of the island.

History

The island was originally inhabited by Yupik Eskimo

Eskimo

Eskimos or Inuit–Yupik peoples are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia , across Alaska , Canada, and Greenland....

s. Nevertheless, the First Alaskans Institute says that, "The people of the Diomede and King Islands are Inupiat...".

The first European to reach the islands was the Russian explorer Semyon Dezhnev

Semyon Dezhnev

Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnyov was a Russian explorer of Siberia and the first European to sail through the Bering Strait. In 1648 he sailed from the Kolyma River on the Arctic Ocean to the Anadyr River on the Pacific...

 in 1648. The Danish navigator (in Russian service) Vitus Bering

Vitus Bering

Vitus Jonassen Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering (also, less correNavy]], a captain-komandor known among the Russian sailors as Ivan Ivanovich. He is noted for being the first European to discover Alaska and its Aleutian Islands...

 re-discovered the Diomede Islands on August 16, 1728, the day on which the Russian Orthodox Church

Russian Orthodox Church

The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...

 celebrates the memory of the martyr St. Diomede.

In 1732, the Russian geodesist Mikhail Gvozdev

Mikhail Gvozdev

Mikhail Spiridonovich Gvozdev was a Russian military geodesist and a commander of the expedition to northern Alaska in 1732, when Alaskan shore was for the first time sited by Russians....

 plotted the island's map.

In 1867 during the Alaska Purchase

Alaska purchase

The Alaska Purchase was the acquisition of the Alaska territory by the United States from Russia in 1867 by a treaty ratified by the Senate. The purchase, made at the initiative of United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, gained of new United States territory...

 the new border between the nations was drawn right between the Big Diomede and Little Diomede islands.

20th century

After World War II the native population was forced off Big Diomede Island to the mainland in order to avoid contacts across the border. Today it has no permanent population but it is the site of a Russian weather station.

During the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, that line constituted the border between the USA and the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, and became known as the "Ice Curtain". In 1987, however, Lynne Cox

Lynne Cox

Lynne Cox is an American long-distance open-water swimmer and writer. In 1971, she and her teammates were the first group of teenagers to complete the crossing of the Catalina Island Channel in California. She was always the slowest swimmer in her swim classes...

 swam from Little Diomede to Big Diomede (approx. 2.2 miles (3.5 km) and was congratulated jointly by Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...

 and Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

.