Vries Strait
Vries Strait(Пролив Фриза,Proliv Friza), historically also known as theDe Vries Strait,is astraitbetween two main islands of theKurils.It is located between the northeastern end of the island ofIturupand the southwestern headland ofUrup Island,connecting theSea of Okhotskon the west with thePacific Oceanon the east. It has a width of 42 km.
Name
[edit]
TheDutchsailorMaarten Gerritszoon Vriesexplored the seas north ofJapanfor theDutch East India Companyin 1643.[1]Sometimes credited with making the first European contact with Urup and Iturup, he actually recorded exaggerated nonsense orphantom islands,claiming the region held the enormous continentalCompany Land—named after theVOC—and the large and prosperousStaten Island,named after theStates General."Vries Strait" was the imaginary body of water that separated these imaginary places. However, they both survived on European maps of the region for well over a century, even afterVitus Bering's lieutenantMartin Spanbergdisproved their existence in anything like Vries's account.[2][3]Nonetheless, having survived for so long on so many maps, the name was carried over to describe the extant strait between the actual islands in the area.
Geography
[edit]The strait forms a major division in the plantlife of the Kurils, called theMiyabe Line(Japanese:Cung bộTuyến,Miyabe-sen) by theJapanesebotanistKingo Miyabe.[4]
References
[edit]- ^"THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES".Archived fromthe originalon 2008-03-25.Retrieved2012-01-16.
- ^De Saint-Martin, Vivien; et al., eds. (1895),"Yèso",Nouveau Dictionnaire de Géographie Universelle(in French), vol. 7, Paris: Librairie Hachette & Co., p.441–445.
- ^Wroth, Lawrence C. (1944),"The Early Cartography of the Pacific",The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America,vol. 38, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 87–231 & 233–268,JSTOR24301919.
- ^"KINGO Miyabe",Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures,Tokyo: National Diet Library, 2004.
45°30′20″N149°10′36″E/ 45.50556°N 149.17667°E
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