Southampton Island

Southampton Island, island, Nunavut Territory, Keewatin Region, in northern Hudson Bay. The island, 41,214 sq km (15,913 sq mi) in area, is separated from the mainland to the west by Roes Welcome Sound, and it is bordered on the north by Repulse Bay and Frozen Strait, on the east by Foxe Channel, and on the southeast by Evans and Fisher straits. The tundra-covered island, which has a number of swift-flowing streams, rises to 600 m (2000 ft) in the northeast. Coral Harbour (population, 2001, 712) in the southeast, is the main settlement of the sparsely inhabited island. Southampton was reached in 1613 by the English navigator Sir Thomas Button and was named in 1631 for Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.