page_title: Franz Josef Land
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Franz Josef Land / History
caption_attribution_description: Bild aus Seite 593 in "Die Gartenlaube". Image from page 593 of journal Die Gartenlaube, 1875. Deutsch: Bildunterschrift: „Verlassen des „Tegetthoff“ nach der Rückkehr der Schlittenreisenden. Nach der Natur aufgenommen von Julius Payer und gemalt von Adolf Obermüllner.“ English: caption: "Verlassen des „Tegetthoff“ nach der Rückkehr der Schlittenreisenden. Nach der Natur aufgenommen von Julius Payer und gemalt von Adolf Obermüllner."
context_page_description: Franz Josef Land, Frantz Iosef Land, Franz Joseph Land or Francis Joseph's Land is a Russian archipelago located in the Arctic Ocean. It is inhabited only by military personnel. It constitutes the northernmost part of Arkhangelsk Oblast and consists of 192 islands, which cover an area of 16,134 square kilometers, stretching 375 kilometers from east to west and 234 kilometers from north to south. The islands are categorized in three groups, a western, central and eastern, separated by the British Channel and the Austrian Strait. The central group is further divided into a northern and southern section by the Markham Strait. The largest island is Prince George Land, which measures 2,741 square kilometers, followed by Wilczek Land, Graham Bell Island and Alexandra Land.
  Eighty-five percent of the archipelago is glaciated, with large unglaciated areas being located on the largest islands and many of the smallest islands. The islands have a combined coastline of 4,425 kilometers. Compared to other Arctic archipelagos, Franz Josef Land has a high dissection rate of 3.6 square kilometers per coastline kilometer.
context_section_description: There are two candidates for the discovery of Franz Josef Land. The first was the Norwegian sealing vessel Spidsbergen, with captain Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck and harpooner Johan Petter Aidijärvi. They sailed northeast from Svalbard in 1865 searching for suitable sealing sites, and they found land that was most likely Franz Josef Land. The account is believed to be factual, but an announcement of the discovery was never made, and their sighting therefore remained unknown to subsequent explorers. This was at the time common to keep newly discovered areas secret, as their discovery was aimed at exploiting them for sealing and whaling, and exposure would cause competitors to flock to the site. Russian scientist N. G. Schilling proposed in 1865 that the ice conditions in the Barents Sea could only be explained if there was another land mass in the area, but he never received funding for an expedition.
  The Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition of 1872–74 was the first to announce the discovery of the islands. Led by Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht of Austria–Hungary on board the schooner Tegetthoff, the expedition's primary goal was to find the Northeast Passage and its secondary goal to reach the North Pole. Starting in July 1872, the vessel drifted from Novaya Zemlya to a new landmass, which they named in honor of Franz Joseph I (1830–1916), Emperor of Austria. The expedition contributed significantly to the mapping and exploration of the islands. The next expedition to spot the archipelago was the Dutch Expedition for the Exploration of the Barents Sea, on board the schooner Willem Barents. Constrained by the ice, they never reached land.
caption: Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition
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