Sikhote-Alin

Sikhote-Alin
File:Sopka in south Sikhote-Alin.JPG Sikhote-Alin is the home to Amur tigers, the largest felines in the world
Highest point
Peak	Tordoki Yani (Russia)
Elevation
Coordinates
Geography
Sikhote-Alin
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Official name	Central Sikhote-Alin
Type	Natural
Criteria	x
Designated	2001 (25th session)
Reference no.	766
Region	Europe and North America

The Sikhote-Alin (Russian: Сихотэ́-Али́нь) is a mountain range in Primorsky and Khabarovsk Krais, Russia, extending about 900 kilometres (560 mi) to the northeast of the Russian Pacific seaport of Vladivostok. The highest summits are Tordoki Yani at 2,077 metres (6,814 ft) above sea level, Ko Mountain (2,003 m) in Khabarovsk Krai and Anik Mountain (1,933 m) in Primorsky Krai.

Geography

Although Sikhote-Alin is a temperate zone, species typical of northern taiga (such as reindeer and the Ussuri brown bear) coexist with tropical species, the Amur leopard, Siberian tiger, and the Asiatic black bear. The region holds very few wolves, due to competition with tigers. The oldest tree in the region is a millennium-old Japanese yew.

History

In the 1910s and 1920s, Sikhote-Alin was extensively explored by Vladimir Arsenyev (1872–1930) who described his adventures in several books, notably Dersu Uzala (1923), which in 1975 was turned into an Oscar-winning film by Akira Kurosawa. The large Sikhote-Alin and Lazo wildlife refuges were set up in 1935 to preserve the region's unusual wildlife.

On February 12, 1947, one of the largest meteor showers in recent history occurred in the Sikhote-Alin mountains. The Sikhote-Alin meteorite exploded in the atmosphere as it fell, raining many tons of metal on an elliptical region about 1.3 square kilometres (0.50 sq mi) in area. Craters were formed by the meteors; the largest was 26 metres (85 ft) in diameter.

In 2001, UNESCO placed Sikhote-Alin onto the World Heritage List, citing its importance for "the survival of endangered species such as the scaly-sided (Chinese) merganser, Blakiston’s fish-owl and the Amur tiger". The World Heritage site has a total area of 16,319 square kilometres (4,033,000 acres), of which the terrestrial core zone of Sikhote-Alin Zapovednik comprises 3,985 square kilometres (985,000 acres). The core zone can only be explored in a company of rangers.

External links

• UNESCO — Sikhote-Alin World Heritage Site
• Natural Heritage Protection Fund: Central Sikhote-Alin - at Natural Heritage Protection Fund
• Zhuravlev, Yu. N., ed. (2000) Стратегия сохранения биоразнообразия Сихотэ-Алиня = A Biodiversity Conservation Strategy for the Sikhote-Alin' Vladivostok: Russian Academy of Sciences, Far Eastern Branch