What exactly are the Diomede Islands? Let’s discover why they are known as Yesterday and Tomorrow Islands!
The islands were named after Vitus Jonassen Bering, a Danish-Russian navigator who discovered them on August 16, 1728. He named the Greek saint Diomede for them.
On Earth, there’s a unique place called the Diomede Island where you can walk forward and backward within a single day. Even though scientists are still figuring out the time travel in space, this extraordinary experience is already happening here. What makes it even more interesting is that islands are at odds with each other, belonging to Russia and the United States.
What is the meaning of Diomede Islands?
The Bering Strait, which separates the Russian mainland from the US state of Alaska, is divided by two tiny rocky islands, the Diomede Islands.
The larger island, also known as Big Diomede or Ratmanov Island, is a portion of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in Russia and is regarded as the country’s easternmost point. The United States manages Little Diomede Island, known as Italic in Inupiaq.
Why are they named the Yesterday and Tomorrow Islands?
Yesterday and Tomorrow Island got Their names because they’re split by the International Date Line. Little Diomede is slightly ahead of Big Diomede, but it’s close. Tomorrow Island is just 21 hours ahead of Yesterday Island due to locally established time zones.
Despite the extreme time difference, the ice between the two islands freezes in the winter due to the temperatures in both regions.
Big Diomede is Russia’s eastern point, while Little Diomede has a small population reaching its clumsy settlement, Diomede.
Big Diomede
The Big Diomede Island, which has a 29 km area, is located 45 km southeast of Cape Dezhnev on the Chukchi Peninsula. The island’s highest point is 477 metres above sea level. The island is an essential location for a Russian meteorological station and a border service station, even though no permanent population exists.
On Big Diomede Island, you can find guillemots and puffins among the approximately 11 different seabird species. On and around the island, you can also find mammalian species like bowhead and grey whales, polar bears, ringed and bearded seals and Pacific walruses.
Little Diomede
The Little Diomede Island, the smaller of the two Diomede Islands, has a size of roughly 7.3 km and is located about 25 km west of the Alaskan mainland. The island’s highest point is 494 metres above sea level.
The only populated area on the island is the village of Diomede (or Ialiq), situated on the western shore. The Inupiaq people live there. This island experiences relatively cold summers with temperatures averaging 4 to 10°C and highly frigid winters with average temperatures ranging from -12 to -14°C. The island is shrouded in fog and has an overcast sky throughout the summer.
Discovery and rediscovery of the Islands ;
In 1648, Semyon Dezhnev, a Russian naval explorer, became the first European to visit the Diomede Islands. The Danish-Russian explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering rediscovered the islands on August 16, 1728, when the Russian Orthodox Church commemorated the Greek Saint Diomedes. As a result, the islands were given his name.
When Russia gave Alaska to the United States in 1867,they agreed that the border between them would be right in the middle of these two islands.Back in the Cold War,people called this border between the United States and the Soviet Union the “Ice Curtain”.
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Writer
Fariha Alif
Intern, Content Writing Department
YSSE