The Early Cartography of the Bering Strait Region

Abstract

... In its later phase, from the mid-seventeenth century on, the locale of this mythical strait was shifted eastward to a position between a legendary land of Jeso and America north of California, and became involved in the controversy over a Northwest Passage from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific. It was at this time that another cartography began to develop, based at first on a slim and tenuous knowledge of the facts, but nevertheless carrying with it the promise of a realistic cartography of the Bering Strait region. This was the Russian cartography of northeastern Siberia. Less is generally known about this cartography than about that of the Strait of Anian; yet, since World War II, Soviet scholars have greatly advanced our knowledge of it. This paper will focus on a selected group of maps from the Russian cartography. ...