Population
The only permanently inhabited locality is the village of Nikolskoye on the northwest end of Bering Island, with an estimated population of 613 as of 2009. The population consists almost entirely of Russians and Aleuts. The majority of the islands' area, as well as much of the adjacent marine habitat (14,088 square miles (36,488 km2)), is taken up by the Komandorsky Zapovednik, a natural preserve. The economy is based primarily on fishing, mushroom gathering, the administration of the zapovednik, ecotourism, and government services.
The village has a school, a satellite tracking station and a dirt airstrip south of the village.
The other settlements on the two islands are small villages or scattering of houses:
- Severnoye
- Podutesnaya
- Gladkovskeya
- Lisennova
- Peschanka
- Preobrajenskoe Settlement at Peschanaya Bay on Medniy Island - abandoned
- Glinka
Read more about this topic: Commander Islands
Famous quotes containing the word population:
“In our large cities, the population is godless, materialized,—no bond, no fellow-feeling, no enthusiasm. These are not men, but hungers, thirsts, fevers, and appetites walking. How is it people manage to live on,—so aimless as they are? After their peppercorn aims are gained, it seems as if the lime in their bones alone held them together, and not any worthy purpose.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A multitude of little superfluous precautions engender here a population of deputies and sub-officials, each of whom acquits himself with an air of importance and a rigorous precision, which seemed to say, though everything is done with much silence, “Make way, I am one of the members of the grand machine of state.””
—Marquis De Custine (1790–1857)