Vilkitsky Island is bleak and windswept and is covered with
tundra. The island is crescent-shaped and it is divided in two by a narrow sound in its midst. It is 42 km in length but only 12 km wide at its broadest zone. The sea surrounding this island is covered with pack ice in the winter and there are numerous ice floes even in the summer. There is a large shallow area between Vilkitsky Island and its southern neighbor,
Neupokoyev Island (Остров Неупокоева), named after
Konstantin Neupokoev (1884—1924), a naval officer, hydrographer and explorer of the
Russian Hydrographic Service in
Soviet times. Vilkitsky Island belongs to the
Tyumen Oblast administrative division of the
Russian Federation. It is also part of the
Great Arctic State Nature Reserve, the largest nature reserve of Russia. This island is named after Russian hydrographer
Boris Vilkitsky's father
Andrey Vilkitsky, while the Vilkitsky Islands in the Laptev sea are named after Russian hydrographer Boris Vilkitsky himself. ==See also==