two, in Bering Strait, 25 mi. NW of Cape Prince of Wales, at W end of Seward Peninsula; Kotzebue-Kobuk Low.
these islands presumably were first discovered by Captain Commander Vitus Bering, Imperial Russian Navy (IRN), on August 16, 1728 (OS) and named for Saint Diomede, whose day it was. or "Gvozdev Islands" (Sarichev, 1826, map 4), by the Russians for Michael Gvozdev, a surveyor who explored the Bering Strait in 1730. Cook, RN, "placed three islands in the middle of the strait * * * Kotzebue fancied he saw a fourth * * *." boundary between the United States and the U.S.S.R. passes between Big Diomede and Little Diomede Islands.