Boundaries between the continents of Earth Zemlya extend northward from the northern end of the Ural Mountains and are a continuation of that chain into the Arctic Ocean. While Novaya Zemlya was variously grouped with Europe or with Asia in 19th-century maps it is now usually grouped with Europe, the continental boundary considered to join the Arctic Ocean along the southern shore of the Kara Sea. The Russian Arctic archipelago of Franz Josef Land farther north is also associated with Europe. Europe ends in the west at the Atlantic Ocean, although Iceland and the Azores archipelago (in the Atlantic, between Europe and North America) are usually
Severnaya Zemlya Sea Route in what was seen as the culmination of the Great Northern Expedition, an ambitious enterprise initially conceived by emperor Peter I the Great in order to map the whole of the northern coast of Russia to the east. On 3 September 1913 (22 August 1913 in the Julian calendar used by Russia at the time), members of Vilkitsky's expedition landed on what is now known as Cape Berg on October Revolution Island. They raised the Russian flag on the shore and named the new territory Tayvay Land (, "Zemlya Tayway"), after the first syllable of their icebreakers' names.