The Khatanga Gulf or Khatanga Bay is a large tidal estuary

Estuary

An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....

 in the Laptev Sea

Laptev Sea

The Laptev Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern coast of Siberia, the Taimyr Peninsula, Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands. Its northern boundary passes from the Arctic Cape to a point with co-ordinates of 79°N and 139°E, and ends at the Anisiy...

. It is relatively narrow, its length being 220 km with a maximum width of 54 km.

The Bolshoy Begichev Island

Bolshoy Begichev Island

Bolshoy Begichev is an island in the Laptev Sea, Russia. Its area is 1764 km². The island is situated within the Khatanga Gulf , splitting the gulf into two straits....

 divides the gulf into two strait

Strait

A strait or straits is a narrow, typically navigable channel of water that connects two larger, navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not...

s: Northern Strait (13 km wide) and Eastern Strait (8 km wide). The maximum depth of the gulf is 29 m. The Khatanga River

Khatanga River

The Khatanga River is a river in Krasnoyarsk Krai in Russia. It begins at the confluence of the rivers Kotuy and Kheta. The Khatanga River is long; the area of its basin is 364,000 km². It flows into the Khatanga Gulf of the Laptev Sea, forming an estuary...

 flows out into the Khatanga Gulf. The shores of the gulf are high, steep, and indented. The tide

Tide

Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth....

s are semidiurnal reaching up to 1.4 m. The Khatanga Gulf is covered with ice most of the year.

The shores of the Khatanga Bay are generally raised, consisting of low tundra cliffs, as well as sandstone and mudstone cliffs and sedimentation areas.

Since the administrative border cuts across this area, the northern and western parts of the Khatanga Bay belong to the Krasnoyarsk Krai

Krasnoyarsk Krai

Krasnoyarsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It is the second largest federal subject after the Sakha Republic, and Russia's largest krai, occupying an area of , which is 13% of the country's total territory. The administrative center of the krai is the city of Krasnoyarsk...

, while its southeastern side belongs to the Sakha administrative region of the Russian Federation.

The former settlement and penal colony

Gulag

The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...

 of Nordvik

Nordvik (Laptev Sea)

Nordvik was a harbor-port in the Khatanga Gulf at the mouth of the Khatanga River. It was located on the Uryung Tumus Peninsula, west of a bay called Nordvik Bay . Formerly there was a small town and a penal colony next to the harbour, called Nordvik...

 was located by a north-facing bay on the Eastern Strait of the Khatanga Gulf known as Bukhta Nordvik

Nordvik Bay

Nordvik Bay is a gulf in the Laptev Sea. Lat 73° 45' and long 112°. It is located Southeast of the mouth of the Khatanga Gulf, between two small peninsulas. The landspit in the west is the Uryung Tumus Peninsula, where there was formerly a village called Nordvik and an infamous penal colony that...

.