There are quite a few islands in the territorial waters of Russia. The Baltic and the Arctic Ocean, the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk abound in pieces of land separated from the mainland. There are also large islands at the mouths of large rivers. The largest island is located in the Far East.
Sakhalin country
It is no coincidence that Sakhalin is considered the largest island in Russia. Its area is more than 76 thousand square meters. km. Its length from north to south is 948 km, its width is very uneven and ranges from 26 km to 160 km. The island is located on the border of two seas - the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk. The Tatar Strait is located between Sakhalin and the mainland, and the La Perouse Strait lies between Sakhalin and Japan.
The closest Japanese island to Sakhalin is Hokkaido.
Where did the name of Sakhalin Island come from?
Since ancient times, the Far East has been inhabited by a wide variety of peoples. The largest river in the Amur region had several names. One of them sounded like "Sazalyan-ulla". So Amur was called by the Manchus, and it was for some reason that it appeared on the first maps of the region, but it meant not a river, but a large island. The mistake was repeated by other cartographers. So the name "Black River" was assigned to the island. At the beginning of the 19th century, Russian researchers tried to explore Sakhalin, but decided that it was a peninsula, since they could not completely bypass it. A Japanese expedition was able to fully survey the coastline at almost the same time. This issue was finally resolved by the expedition of G. I. Nevelskoy in the middle of the nineteenth century.
The Japanese have their own name for Sakhalin - Karafuto.
The farthest points
Sakhalin is located almost strictly along the meridian. Its extreme point in the south is Cape Crillon, which on the map resembles a sharp "nose", in the north - Cape Elizabeth. The widest place is located on a parallel in the Lesogorskoye area. The relief of Sakhalin is extremely diverse. There are mountains in the central part, there are even two mountain systems. The highest point is in the East Sakhalin Mountains, this is the Lopatin peak, which has a height of 1609 m). The mountain systems run almost strictly along the meridian, and between them is the Tym-Poronayskaya lowland. In the north of Sakhalin, the relief is predominantly hilly. There are eleven districts on the island with different reliefs. The climate on the island is quite mild. However, the climatic conditions in different parts of the island differ quite strongly. In the south, the thermometer rarely drops below -10 ° C in winter, the average January temperature is 6 ° C below zero. In the north, the frosts are much stronger, and in January the average daily temperature is -24 ° С. Summer temperatures also vary - from + 10 ° С in the north to + 19 ° С in the southern part.
Bays and lakes
Even a quick glance at the map of Sakhalin allows us to understand that the coastline is quite smooth, there are no small narrow bays here. There are two large bays in the south and in the middle - Terpeniya and Aniva. You can also see four large peninsulas. There are many inland water bodies on Sakhalin - there are more than sixteen thousand of them.
Resources
Sakhalin's nature is extremely rich. There are unique vegetation and amazing fauna here. In addition, Sakhalin is rich in other resources, primarily coal and oil.
