Schmidt Island, Ostrov Shmidta in Russian, is part of the Severnaya Zemlya

Severnaya Zemlya

Severnaya Zemlya is an archipelago in the Russian high Arctic at around . It is located off mainland Siberia's Taymyr Peninsula across the Vilkitsky Strait...

 group in the Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n Arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...

 and was named after Soviet scientist and first head of the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route

Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route

The Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route , also known as Glavsevmorput, was a Soviet government organization in charge of the naval Northern Sea Route, established in January 1932 and dissolved in 1964.-History:The organization traces its roots to AO Komseveroput, a shipping company...

, Otto Schmidt

Otto Schmidt

Otto Yulyevich Schmidt was a Soviet scientist, mathematician, astronomer, geophysicist, statesman, academician, Hero of the USSR , and member of the Communist Party.-Biography:He was born in Mogilev, Russian Empire...

. It is located at the far northwestern end of the archipelago and lies slightly south of the Arctic Cape on Komsomolets Island and is significantly detached from the rest of Severnaya Zemlya relative to the proximity of the other main islands to each other.

Schmidt Island measures 467 km² (180.3 sq mi) and is almost entirely covered by the Schmidt Ice Cap. Owing to its exposed position, the climate in the Schmidt Island's area is much colder than in the rest of the archipelago.