Becker Island

Becker Island
The center of Franz-Josef-Land with the Becker Island
Waters	Barents Sea
Archipelago	Franz Josef Land
Geographical location	81 ° 12 ′  N , 59 ° 25 ′  E Coordinates: 81 ° 12 ′  N , 59 ° 25 ′  E
length	13.7 km
width	3.5 km
surface	36 km²
Highest elevation	165  m
Residents	uninhabited

The Becker Island ( Russian Остров Беккера , Ostrow Bekkera ) is an uninhabited island in the Arctic Archipelago Franz Josef Land . Administratively it belongs to the Russian Arkhangelsk Oblast .

The Becker Island is located on the eastern edge of the central group of islands within Franz Josef Land. The Ruslan Strait separates it from Rainer and Hoffmann Island in the north and Berjoskin Strait from La Ronciere Island in the southeast. To the west and south-west are Payer Island , Kuhn Island and Kane Island . The Becker Island is almost 14 km long and up to 3.5 km wide in an east-west direction. Its western part is covered by a flat ice cap that reaches a height of 66 m, but the eastern half is largely free of ice and ends in a 165 m high cape (Mys Galkowskogo).

The island was discovered by the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition at the beginning of April 1874 and crossed on Easter Monday (April 6th). Julius Payer named it after Moritz Alois Becker , general secretary of the kk geographical society and secretary of the North Pole Committee.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Julius Payer: The Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition in the years 1872–1874, together with a sketch of the second German North Pole expedition 1869–1870 and the polar expedition of 1871 . Alfred Hölder, Vienna 1876, p. 305 .
2. ^ Johan Schimanski, Ulrike Spring: Passengers of the Ice: Polar Heroes and Arctic Discourses 1874 . Böhlau, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-205-79606-0 , p. 443 ( limited preview in the Google book search)

Web links

• Topographic map of the island at a scale of 1: 200,000
• Becker island on the website www.franz-josef-land.info