Kong Karls Land or King Charles Land is an island group in the
Svalbard archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.
Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Arc ...
, in the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
. The island group covers an area of and is made up of the islands of
Kongsøya
Kongsøya is an island in Svalbard, Norway. It is the largest of the islands in King Charles Land (Kong Karls Land). Its area is . The other main island in the chain is Svenskøya.
Geography
Kongsøya is the largest island in Kong Karls Land, a ...
,
Svenskøya,
Abel Island,
Helgoland Island
Helgoland Island ( no, Helgolandøya) is an island in the Svalbard archipelago, one of the islands of Kong Karls Land
Kong Karls Land or King Charles Land is an island group in the Svalbard archipelago, in the Arctic Ocean. The island group cov ...
, and
Tirpitzøya.
The islands, which have the largest concentration of
polar bear in Svalbard, are part of the
Nordaust-Svalbard Nature Reserve
Nordaust-Svalbard Nature Reserve ( no, Nordaust-Svalbard naturreservat) is located in the north-eastern part of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. The nature reserve covers all of Nordaustlandet, Kong Karls Land, Kvitøya, Sjuøyane, Storøya, ...
, along with
Nordaustlandet
Nordaustlandet (sometimes translated as North East Land) is the second-largest island in the archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, with an area of . It lies north east of Spitsbergen, separated by Hinlopen Strait. Much of Nordaustlandet lies under la ...
and
Kvitøya. There is a ban on traffic to the islands, which includes the areas of the sea up to 500 metres away from shore and the airspace up to 500 metres above the area.
Kong Karls Land was discovered by an expedition sent by the
Muscovy Company
The Muscovy Company (also called the Russia Company or the Muscovy Trading Company russian: Московская компания, Moskovskaya kompaniya) was an English trading company chartered in 1555. It was the first major chartered joint s ...
in 1617, probably from a high point on
Barentsøya. They named the group ''Wiche Islands,'' after a member of the company,
Richard Wyche.
Ecology
The
polar bear is found during portions of the year at Kong Karls Land; this bear feeds on local
harp seal
The harp seal (''Pagophilus groenlandicus''), also known as Saddleback Seal or Greenland Seal, is a species of earless seal, or true seal, native to the northernmost Atlantic Ocean and Arctic Ocean. Originally in the genus ''Phoca'' with a numbe ...
s and
ring seals. The sub-population of polar bears found here is a
genetically distinct set of polar bears specifically associated with the
Barents Sea
The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...
region.
[C. Michael Hogan (2008]
''Polar Bear: Ursus maritimus'', Globaltwitcher.com, ed. Nicklas Stromberg
See also
*
List of islands in the Arctic Ocean
References
External links
Kong Karls Landfrom www.Svalbard-images.com
Islands of Svalbard
{{svalbard-geo-stub