The Geography of Franz Josef Land refers to an island group belonging to Arkhangelsk Oblast of Russia. It is situated in the Barents Sea of the Arctic, north of Novaya Zemlya and east of Svalbard. At latitudes between 80.0° and 81.9° north, it is the most northerly group of islands associated with Eurasia. The extreme northernmost point is Cape Fligely on Rudolf Island. The archipelago consists of 191 ice-covered islands with a total area of . It is currently uninhabited. The archipelago is only from the North Pole, and the northernmost islands are closer to the Pole than any other land except for Canada's Ellesmere Island and Greenland. The largest island is Zemlya Georga (George Land) which measures from end to end. The highest point in the archipelago is on Ostrov Viner-Neyshtadt (Wiener Neustadt Island) which reaches above sea level. The central cluster of large islands in the midst of the archipelago forms a compact whole, known as Zichy Land, where islands are separated from each other by very narrow sounds that are frozen most of the year.
During the period 1926 and 1932 Franz Josef Land also known in Russian as Zemlya Franca Josepha became a part of the Soviet Union and is included under the Arkhangelsk Oblast. In 1994, it was declared the Sakasnik Nature Reserve covering an area of including area of the sea surrounding the land but with restricted entry only on special permit which is not given easily; out of this area, area around the military base of Nagurskoye on the Alexandra Land is totally out of bounds.
Landforms
The archipelago is located at the nearest about from the North Pole, far beyond the Polar Circle. The group's 191 islands measure . They extend over a length of in the north–south direction and in the east–west direction. There are flat mountains in the range of above sea level. The general lie of the land is in the elevation range between in the north and in the south with Wilczek Land forming the highest land mass at an elevation of . The islands are covered with glaciers to the extent of 85%, with no land breaks, and the land area of all the islands is only about 20%, with a coastline measuring . There are multiple icebergs, with limited length of less than and some of them are similar to the Antarctic tabular iceberg. Air borne radar measurements have recorded an ice layer of in Graham Bell and Hall Islands; the thick ice cover on the islands is a phenomenon of the last 1000 years. As a result, the reindeer population has not survived in these islands. Moving down to the coastal region, where the ice disappears, many lakes and ponds are seen. But as this area is very limited only small streams are noted, the largest extending only in length on Prince George Island.
Islands
Franz Josef Land comprises some 191 more or less ice-covered islands with a total area of about ; the area varying with the fluctuation of glaciers during rising or receding stages. Its two largest islands are Prince George Island and Wilczek Land, the former lies to the west and the latter to the east in the archipelago. Two geographic subgroups in Franz Joseph Land are Zemlya Zichy (Zichy Land), a large and compact glaciarized island cluster located in the middle of the archipelago containing ten large islands, and Belaya Zemlya, a group of three islands in the northeast named Hvidtenland ("White Land") by Fridtjof Nansen. Through the middle of these two groups runs the wide strait which von Payer named the Austrian Strait, in honour of his country. Rudolph Island is the nearest to the North Pole. The largest island, Zemlya Georga (George Land) measures from end to end. The highest point in the archipelago is on Ostrov Viner-Neyshtadt (Wiener Neustadt Island) which reaches above sea level.
The archipelago is divided in at least three subgroups: Western islands, west of the British Channel and De Bruyne Sound; Eastern islands, east of the Northeastern Sound, Beryozkina Channel and Austrian Strait; Central islands, everything in between these two.
The central islands again split in the minor groups: Northern islands, north of the Markham Sound; Southern islands, south of the Markham Sound.
Largest islands
Name Sub group Area (km2) Elevation (m) Alexandra Land Western islands 1050 382 Prince George Land Western islands 2821 416 Bruce Island Western islands 191 301 Northbrook Island Western islands 254 344 Prince Rudolf Island Northern islands 297 461 Karl-Alexander Island Northern islands 329 365 Rainer Island Northern islands 140 284 Jackson Island Northern islands 510 481 Payer Island Northern islands 151 452 Greely Island Northern islands 149 447 Salisbury Island Northern islands 960 450 Ziegler Island Northern islands 448 554 Wiener Neustadt Island Northern islands 237 620 Luigi Island Northern islands 371 442 Champ Island Northern islands 374 507 Heiss Island Northern islands 132 242 Hall Island Southern islands 1049 502 MacKlintok Island Southern islands 612 521 Salm Island Southern islands 344 343 Hooker Island Southern islands 460 576 Eva-Liv Island Eastern islands 288 381 La Ronciere Island Eastern islands 478 431 Wilczek Land Eastern islands 2203 606 Graham Bell Island Eastern islands 1557 509
Western islands
The western islands are separated from the other islands by the British Channel and De Bruyne Sound to the east. They include the large Alexandra Land and Prince George Land and the smaller Arthur, Bruce Island, Mabel, Bell, and Northbrook islands.
Alexandra Land Alexandra Land is the westernmost island in the archipelago. It has an area of approximately . The sounds Cambridge Sound to the east and Arkhangelsky Sound off the northeast coast separate it from Zemlya Georga (also known as Prince George Land) to the east. Its highest point is in the centre of the island, and there is also a peak near the northern coast. Cape Nimrod lies on its western coast, and Cape George Thomas on its northeastern coast on Arkhangelsky Sound. There is a base named Nagurskoye near its northern coast, named after Jan Nagórski, which served as one of the most important meteorological stations in the archipelago during the Cold War. The northernmost Russian Air Force base is in the Alexandra Island (though in a poor condition) with a small unit of security force is existing since 1955. Prior to this, the manned base station in the extreme north was in the Rudolph island which is defunct since 1955. It has a snow runway. An Antonov An-72 cargo aircraft crashed while landing at Nagurskoye on 23 December 1996.
Prince George Land Prince George Land (Zemlya Georga), lies to the east of Alexandra Island is the largest island of Franz Josef Land which measures from end to end. It has an area of and lies within latitude 80.50° N and longitude 49.50° E. Its mapped shore length is . The highest point is in the northern-central part of the island. Jackson named the island "Prince George Land" after Queen Victoria's grandson. There are also peaks of on its western side and near the southwestern coast, northwest of Gray Bay. To the southeast of this is Nightingale Sound, which separates the island from the small islands of Bell island, Mabel Island and Bruce Island. To the north of this and off the east coast of Zemlya Georga is the British Channel, which has Hooker Island to the far southeast. Zemlya Georga has several capes on its northern end, including Cape Murray on the northeastern peninsula, Cape Bruce on the north-northeastern peninsula, and Cape Battenberg on the northern peninsula, marking the northernmost point of the island. Several streams during the summer season flow into the sea in the northwestern side, and Geographer Bay divides the northeastern and north-north eastern peninsulas. Off the north coast, Leigh Smith Sound separates Zemlya Georga from the small Arthur Island, which has a peak of and the Cape Ice Reconnaissance on its northern coast.
Northern islands
The northern and central islands lie to the north of the De Bruyne Sound and Markham Sound and to the west of the Austrian Strait. They include Rudolf island to the north, the Zichy Land cluster of islands, and Heiss and Komsomol islands to the southeast.
Rudolf Island
Cape Fligely on Rudolf Island at 81°52' N is the northernmost point of Franz Josef Land. Lieutenant Julius von Payer, an officer of the Austro-Hungarian army, cartographer, and mountaineer, planted an Austro-Hungarian flag at Cape Fligely during the 1874 expedition that discovered Franz Josef Land. The Baldwin-Ziegler expedition arrived in 1902 and established a depot, and the Fiala-Ziegler expedition set up camp here for two seasons. A meteorological station was set up in 1932 in coordination with International Polar Year (1932–3) but was evacuated in 1941. A later station functioned until 1995. Several pre-World War II Soviet stations existed in Teplitz Bay but little has remained according to the observations of the Kapitan Dranitsyn expedition in 2004.
Zichy Land
The islands of the Zemlya Zichy archipelago are separated from each other by very narrow sounds that are frozen most of the year, forming a compact whole. From north to south the main islands are Karl-Alexander Island, Rainer Island, Jackson Island, Payer Island, Greely Island, Ziegler Island, Salisbury Island, Wiener Neustadt Island, Luigi Island and Champ Island.
Karl-Alexander Island covers an area of with an elevation of and its shoreline measures . Rainer Island has an area of . The elevation of the island is , and it has a shoreline of length. Jackson Island (Ostrov Dzheksona), discovered by Frederick George Jackson in May 1895, is in area; its highest elevation is and its mapped shore length is . Greely Island, also Grili, encompasses an area of with a shore length of . Payer Island covers an area of with an altitude of , and has a shoreline extending over length. Salisbury Island, also known as Solsberi Island, has an area of and the highest point is at an elevation of . The mapped shore length is .
Wiener Neustadt Island, also Viner-Noyshtadt or Viner N'Ojstadt, lies at . It has an area of and has a highest point of . Its shores extend over a length of . Luigi Island, also known as Ostrov Luidzhi, has a surface area of ; the highest point of the island is and it has a shore line of . Champ Island has an area of and is at an elevation of and its shore line measures .
Heiss and Komsomol
Heiss Island and Komsomol Island lie southeast of Zichy land. The Austria Strait separates Hall Island from Komsomol and the large Wilczek Island further to the northeast. Heiss Island, also known as Kheysa or Chejsa island, is bound within latitude 80.55° N and longitude 57.50° E. It encompasses an area of . Its mapped shore length is . The abandoned Kheysa, Soviet rocket launching site, was located on this island. In the Geophysical Year 1957–58, a new meteorological station, which over the years became the largest such station, was established on the banks of a small crater lake in the ice free zone of this island and named after Ernst Krenkel, an Arctic explorer. The station was closed in 2000 and abandoned buildings are still seen here. Another weather station was established in 2005. The island is named after the Arctic explorer, Isaac Israel Hayes.
Southern islands
The southern islands lies east of De Bruyne Sound, and south of British Channel, Markham Sound and Austrian Strait. They include the larger Hooker, McClintock, Hall and Salm islands, and many smaller islands.
Hooker Island