Severnaya Zemlya

Coordinates: 79°30′N 97°45′E / 79.5°N 97.75°E / 79.5; 97.75 Severnaya Zemlya (Russian: Се́верная Земля́, Northern Land) is an archipelago in the Russian high Arctic. It is located off mainland Siberia's Taymyr Peninsula across the Vilkitsky Strait. This archipelago separates two marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Kara Sea in the west and the Laptev Sea in the east.

Severnaya Zemlya was first noted in 1913 and first charted in 1930–32, making it the last archipelago on Earth to be discovered. Politically, they are part of Russia's Krasnoyarsk Krai region, but are uninhabited by humans except for an Arctic base.

Severnaya Zemlya is notable in connection with the ongoing multi-year shrinkage of the Arctic permanent ice cap. Until recently, the islands were a portion of Eurasia which remained firmly within the grip of the ice even at its smallest extent during the late summer melt season, blocking the Northeast Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific. By the late summer of 2012, however, the permanent ice had reached a record low extent and open water could be found to the north of the archiapelago.