page_title: Kara Sea
section_title: Islands
hierarchical_section_title: Kara Sea / Geography / Islands
caption_attribution_description: English: Islands and archipelagos of the Kara Sea
context_page_description: The Kara Sea is part of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. It is separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and from the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. It is named after the Kara River, which is now relatively insignificant but which played an important role in the Russian conquest of northern Siberia. The Kara River name is derived from a Nenets word meaning "hummocked ice".
  The Kara Sea's northern limit is marked geographically by a line running from Cape Kohlsaat in Graham Bell Island, Franz Josef Land, to Cape Molotov, the northernmost point of Komsomolets Island in Severnaya Zemlya.
  The Kara Sea is roughly 1,450 km long and 970 km wide with an area of around 880,000 km² and a mean depth of 110 metres.
  Its main ports are Novy Port and Dikson and it is important as a fishing ground although the sea is ice-bound for all but two months of the year. Significant discoveries of petroleum and natural gas, the East-Prinovozemelsky field, an extension of the West Siberian Oil Basin, have been made but have not yet been developed.
context_section_description: VThere are many islands and island groups in the Kara Sea. Unlike the other marginal seas of the Arctic, where most islands lie along the coasts, in the Kara Sea many islands, like the Arkticheskiy Institut Islands, the Izvesti Tsik Islands, the Kirov Islands, Uedineniya or Lonely Island, Wiese Island, and Voronina Island are located in the open sea of its central regions.
  The largest group in the Kara Sea is by far the Nordenskiöld Archipelago, with five large subgroups and over ninety islands. Other important islands in the Kara Sea are Bely Island, Dikson Island, Taymyr Island, the Kamennyye Islands and Oleni Island. Despite the high latitude all islands are unglaciated except for Ushakov Island at the extreme northern limit of the Kara Sea.
caption: Main islands and island groups in the central and eastern regions of the Kara Sea.
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