Queen Elizabeth Islands
Queen Elizabeth Islands | ||
---|---|---|
The Arctic Cordillera on Ellesmere Island | ||
Waters | Arctic Ocean | |
archipelago | Canadian Arctic Archipelago | |
Geographical location | 80 ° 0 ′ N , 93 ° 0 ′ W | |
|
||
Number of islands | 34 main islands | |
Main island |
Ellesmere Island Cornwallis Island |
|
Total land area | 419,061 km² | |
Residents | 375 (2006) | |
Queen Elizabeth Islands (red checkered)
|
The Queen Elizabeth Islands ( English Queen Elizabeth Islands , French Îles de la Reine-Élisabeth ) form the north of the Canadian-Arctic Archipelago , north of Lancaster Sound and Viscount-Melville Sound . Politically, they mostly belong to the Nunavut Territory and to a lesser extent to the Northwest Territories . The 34 main islands and 2092 smaller islands cover a total area of 419,061 km².
population
With around 400 inhabitants, the Queen Elizabeth Islands are very sparsely populated. The only noteworthy settlements are Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island (229 inhabitants at the 2006 census) and Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island (141 inhabitants). Otherwise there is the Alert station with a permanent crew of 5.
Eureka and Camp Hazen on Ellesmere Island as well as the McGill Station on Axel Heiberg Island and the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) on Devon Island are only occupied in summer .
Formerly inhabited stations are Mold Bay on Prince Patrick Island , Isachsen on Ellef Ringnes Island , Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island and Ward Hunt Island Camp on Ward Hunt Island .
Former, now abandoned settlements are Dundas Harbor on Devon Island and Craig Harbor on Ellesmere Island.
administration
Until 1999, the Queen Elizabeth Islands belonged to the Franklin District of the Northwest Territories of Canada.
With the establishment of the Nunavut Territory in 1999, all islands and island parts of the archipelago east of longitude 110 ° West were added to the Qikiqtaaluk region of the new territory, i.e. H. most of the archipelago. The rest stayed with the Northwest Territories. The islands of Borden , Mackenzie-King and Melville are intersected by the new border . Of the larger islands, only Prince Patrick , Eglinton , Emerald and Brock belong completely to the Northwest Territories .
history
The islands were discovered by William Baffin , who first ventured into the island region in 1615-1616, and William Edward Parry , who came back to the islands of the Canadian archipelago 200 years later (1819-1820) in search of a north-west passage. After him they were referred to as the Parry Islands until 1954 ; then they were renamed in honor of Queen Elizabeth II . Important explorations and mapping were carried out in the course of the numerous search expeditions for the missing polar explorer Sir John Franklin in the middle of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Norwegian Otto Sverdrup made a significant contribution to the exploration of the islands, especially the archipelago named after him. Sverdrup took possession of the lands he had explored for Norway, which did not give up its sovereignty claim to the Sverdrup Islands until 1930 in favor of Canada. Oil has been drilled in many places on the islands since the 1960s .
Classification of the archipelago
The archipelago includes 34 larger and 2,092 smaller and smallest islands, which, with the exception of Ellesmere Island , Devon Island and some islands in Norwegian Bay, are divided into two subgroups, the Sverdrup Islands and the Parry Islands :
island | sub- group |
territory | Elevation | Height m |
Area km² |
Rank Canada |
Rank world |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ellesmere Island | Nunavut | Barbeau Peak | 2616 | 196236 | 3 | 10 | |
Bathurst Island | Parry | Nunavut | Stokes Mountain | 412 | 16042 | 13 | 54 |
Borden Island | Parry | NWT / Nunavut | ... | 150 | 2794 | 30th | 170 |
Brock Island | Parry | NWT | ... | 67 | 764 | 58 | 383 |
Byam Martin Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | 150 | 1150 | 42 | 294 |
Cameron Island | Parry | Nunavut | Mount Wilmot | ... | 1059 | 46 | 312 |
Coburg Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | 823 | 344 | 83 | ... |
Cornwallis Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | 359 | 6995 | 21st | 96 |
Devon Island | Nunavut | Devon Ice Cap | 1920 | 55247 | 6th | 27 | |
Eglinton Island | Parry | NWT | ... | 150 | 1541 | 36 | 249 |
Emerald Isle | Parry | NWT | ... | 150 | 549 | 63 | 466 |
Lougheed Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | 60-110 | 1308 | 41 | 273 |
Mackenzie King Island | Parry | NWT / Nunavut | Castel Butte | 300 | 5048 | 26th | 115 |
Melville Island | Parry | Nunavut / NWT | ... | 776 | 42149 | 8th | 33 |
Prince Patrick Island | Parry | NWT | ... | 279 | 15848 | 14th | 55 |
Amund Ringnes Island | Sverdrup | Nunavut | Mountain ridge | 265 | 5255 | 25th | 111 |
Axel Heiberg Island | Sverdrup | Nunavut | Outlook Peak | 2211 | 43178 | 7th | 32 |
Cornwall Island | Sverdrup | Nunavut | McLeod Peak | 400 | 2358 | 31 | 184 |
Ellef Ringnes Island | Sverdrup | Nunavut | Isachsen Dome | 260 | 11295 | 16 | 69 |
Graham Island | Nunavut | ... | 175 | 1378 | 38 | 265 | |
Meighen Island | Sverdrup | Nunavut | ... | 300 | 955 | 50 | 337 |
Ile Vanier | Parry | Nunavut | ... | 200 | 1126 | 44 | 298 |
King Christian Island | Sverdrup | Nunavut | King Christian Mountain | 165 | 645 | 60 | 420 |
North Kent Island | Nunavut | ... | 600 | 590 | 62 | 453 | |
Alexander Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | 60-180 | 484 | 66 | ... |
Massey Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | 210 | 432 | 71 | ... |
Little Cornwallis Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | ... | 412 | 75 | ... |
Helena Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | ... | 326 | 85 | ... |
Stor Island | Sverdrup | Nunavut | ... | 500 | 313 | 87 | ... |
Baillie-Hamilton Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | ... | 290 | 91 | ... |
Griffith Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | ... | 189 | 110 | ... |
Hoved Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | ... | 158 | 125 | ... |
Lowther Island | Parry | Nunavut | ... | 106.5 | 145 | 133 | ... |
Buckingham Island | Nunavut | Mount Windsor | 150 | 137 | 137 | ... | |
remaining 2092 | Nunavut / NWT | ... | ... | 2321 | - | - | |
Queen Elisabeth | Barbeau Peak | 2616 | 419061 | - | - |
Individual evidence
- ↑ Queen Elizabeth Islands ( Memento from August 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), The Atlas of Canada (English)