Vries Strait (, ''Proliv Friza''), historically also known as the De Vries Strait, is a

strait A strait is a water body connecting two seas or water basins. The surface water is, for the most part, at the same elevation on both sides and flows through the strait in both directions, even though the topography generally constricts the ...

between two main islands of the Kurils. It is located between the northeastern end of the island of

Iturup Iturup (; ), also historically known by #Names, other names, is an island in the Kuril Archipelago separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. The town of Kurilsk, administrative center of Kurilsky District, is located roughly mi ...

and the southwestern headland of Urup Island, connecting the

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the sou ...

on the west with the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

on the east. It has a width of 42 km.

Name

The Dutch sailor Maarten Gerritszoon Vries explored the seas north of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

for the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

in 1643. Sometimes credited with making the first European contact with Urup and Iturup, he actually recorded exaggerated nonsense or

phantom island A phantom island is a purported island which was included on maps for a period of time, but was later found not to exist. They usually originate from the reports of early sailors exploring new regions, and are commonly the result of navigati ...

s, claiming the region held the enormous continental Company Landnamed after the

VOC VOC, VoC or voc may refer to: Science and technology * Open-circuit voltage (VOC), the voltage between two terminals when there is no external load connected * Variant of concern, a category used during the assessment of a new variant of a virus * ...

and the large and prosperous

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

, named after the States General. "Vries Strait" was the imaginary body of water that separated these imaginary places. However, they both survived on European maps of the region for well over a century, even after

Vitus Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering ( , , ; baptised 5 August 1681 – 19 December 1741),All dates are here given in the Julian calendar, which was in use throughout Russia at the time. also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering (), was a Danish-born Russia ...

's lieutenant Martin Spanberg disproved their existence in anything like Vries's account. Nonetheless, having survived for so long on so many maps, the name was carried over to describe the extant strait between the actual islands in the area.

Geography

The strait forms a major division in the plantlife of the Kurils, called the Miyabe Line (, ''Miyabe-sen'') by the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

botanist Kingo Miyabe..

References

Straits of the Kuril Islands Maritime history of the Dutch East India Company {{SakhalinOblast-geo-stub