Zhenbao Island or Damansky Island is a small island measuring 0.74 square kilometre (0.285715597358476 sq mi). It is located on the Ussuri River

Ussuri River

The Usuri ula is a river in the south of the Outer Manchuria and east of Inner Manchuria . It rises in the Sikhote-Alin range, flowing north, forming part of the Sino-Russian border based on the Sino-Russian Convention of Peking in 1860, until it joins the Amur River at Khabarovsk . It is...

 on the border between Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 (Primorsky Krai

Primorsky Krai

Primorsky Krai , informally known as Primorye , is a federal subject of Russia . Primorsky means "maritime" in Russian, hence the region is sometimes referred to as Maritime Province or Maritime Territory. Its administrative center is in the city of Vladivostok...

) and the People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 (PRC) (Heilongjiang

Heilongjiang

For the river known in Mandarin as Heilong Jiang, see Amur River' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. "Heilongjiang" literally means Black Dragon River, which is the Chinese name for the Amur. The one-character abbreviation is 黑...

 Province).

It was the subject of a territorial dispute

Territorial dispute

A territorial dispute is a disagreement over the possession/control of land between two or more states or over the possession or control of land by a new state and occupying power after it has conquered the land from a former state no longer currently recognized by the new state.-Context and...

 between 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 the PRC. Battles were fought over Zhenbao Island by the Soviet Union and the PRC, with a considerable loss of life, during the Sino-Soviet border conflict

Sino-Soviet border conflict

The Sino–Soviet border conflict was a seven-month military conflict between the Soviet Union and China at the height of the Sino–Soviet split in 1969. The most serious of these border clashes occurred in March 1969 in the vicinity of Zhenbao Island on the Ussuri River, also known as Damanskii...

 of March 1969. The conflict over Zhenbao raised concerns that it could ignite another World War

World war

A world war is a war affecting the majority of the world's most powerful and populous nations. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters....

 until an initial resolution of the conflict in November, 1969.

On May 19, 1991, the two sides came to an agreement that Zhenbao Island was part of the territory of the PRC, and in accordance therewith, the Soviet Troops withdrew.

A 2004 Russian documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

, Damansky Island Year 1969

Damansky Island Year 1969

Damansky Island Year 1969 is a 2004 Russian documentary film about two battles that took place on Damansky Island in 1969 between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China...

. ("Остров Даманский. 1969 год"), was made about the 1969 Zhenbao incident. Interviews were filmed with participants and leaders from both sides of the conflict.

External links

• Centuries-old dispute became open combat during Cold War (archived webpage)
• Geo Coords: 46°29'8.13"N , 133°50'40.04"E. Google Earth File: http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=158764 Google Maps satellite image: http://maps.google.com/?t=k&ll=46.495793,133.849182&spn=0.156224,0.33371&t=k
• Google Earth BBS article: http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/158764/an/0/page/0/gonew/1#UNREAD
• Damanski-Zhenbao website