Kamchatka, situated in the northeastern part of Eurasia within Russia, is a peninsula surrounded by the Sea of Okhotsk to the west and the Bering Sea and Pacific Ocean to the east.
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The name “Kamchatka” associated with the river, first appeared in Peter Godunov’s 1667 drawing of Siberia. There are over 20 versions explaining the origin of the toponym “Kamchatka.”
Before Russian arrival, Kamchatka was home to various ethnic groups: Itelmens, Koryaks, Chukchi, and Ainu.
In the Ainu language, the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands were referred to as Chupka (also Tyupka, Tsyupka), literally meaning “place of sunrise.”
One version suggests that the name “Kamchatka Peninsula” itself is a compound Ainu word: kam (“to extend”) + chak (“to explode”) + ka (“place”). The original toponym was Kamchakka, signifying “vast and exploding terrain.”
Another version proposes that the peninsula got its name from the Koryak term for the river valley – Kamchatka, meaning “Konchat”