Beringia refers to landforms that existed at various times between northeastern Asia and northwestern North America. The term commonly applies to the large areas that linked present-day northwestern Canada and Alaska with northeastern Siberia during the Pleistocene Epoch (2,600,000 to about 11,700 years ago). The most recent of these regions appeared roughly 38,000 years ago and remained until the end of the Pleistocene. At that time, the Bering Strait opened, separating the land connection between Alaska and Siberia. Beringia is thought to have been at its largest roughly 20,000 years ago. Because so much of Earth’s water was frozen in glaciers, sea levels worldwide were lowered, exposing large areas of former seafloor.

Where was Beringia located?

Beringia was a series of landforms that existed at various times between northeastern Asia and northwestern North America. The term Beringia refers to the large areas that intermittently linked present-day northwestern Canada and Alaska with northeastern Siberia during the Pleistocene Epoch. Beringia reached its greatest extent roughly 20,000 years ago, during the latter part of the Wisconsin Glacial Stage. It occupied a vast region of dry land extending northward into territory now underwater in the southern Arctic Ocean and stretching eastward from perhaps the Lena River delta in Siberia to the Mackenzie River delta in Canada’s Yukon territory. It continued southward for some 1,000 miles through the then-dry seafloor of the Bering Strait and occupied roughly the northern half of the Bering Sea. The present-day Bering Strait separates Asia and North America.

How was Beringia formed?

During the Pleistocene Epoch, which lasted from about 2,600,000 to about 11,700 years ago, worldwide glaciation led to significantly lower sea levels. This drop exposed large areas of dry land between Asia and North America, creating Beringia. The most recent formation of Beringia began approximately 38,000 years ago, reaching its greatest extent around 20,000 years ago. At that time, it stretched from the Lena River delta in Siberia to the Mackenzie River delta in Canada's Yukon territory. As the glaciers melted, the rising sea levels eventually submerged the land bridge, forming the Bering Strait and separating the two continents.

Why is Beringia important in human history?

Beringia, a series of landforms that existed between northeastern Asia and northwestern North America, played a crucial role in human history. The most recent Beringia, which appeared about 38,000 years ago, is considered a primary route for human migration into the Americas. The land bridge allowed plants and animals to move between the Old and New Worlds. It is believed that humans followed this route in search of game, although alternative theories suggest arrival by boat or a coastal land route. The native peoples of the Americas are widely believed to be descendants of ancestors from Asia who crossed Beringia.

What types of plants and animals lived in Beringia?

During the existence of Beringia , plants and animals moved between Asia and North America across the Bering Land Bridge. The preserve has about 400 plant species, and the tundra vegetation consists mainly of low coastal plains.

How did changes in climate affect Beringia and its inhabitants?

During the Pleistocene Epoch, climate changes significantly impacted Beringia and its inhabitants. Fluctuations in climate and environment led to large-scale migrations, adaptations, and extinctions of plants and animals. Around 20,000 years ago, the Wisconsin Glacial Stage caused sea levels to drop as much as 400 feet, creating a vast land bridge between Asia and North America. This land bridge supported tundra vegetation, allowing mammals to migrate eastward. Some theories suggest that humans followed this route in search of game. The end of the Pleistocene brought about the extinction of many large mammals, such as mammoths and giant beavers. This extinction may have resulted from overpredation by human hunters or abrupt changes in climate and vegetation.

Beringia

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Map highlighting the ancient landform of Beringia in orange, spanning the area between eastern Russia and Alaska across the Bering Strait, including parts of present-day Russia, Alaska, and submerged land in the Bering and Chukchi seas. Surrounding regions such as Canada, the Pacific Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean are labeled, with a locator inset showing Beringia's position in the Northern Hemisphere.

Quick Facts

Also called:: Bering Land Bridge

Related Topics:: Pleistocene Epoch; Wisconsin Glacial Stage; human migration; paleontology

On the Web:: The Royal Society Publishing - Proceedings B - Beringia and the peopling of the Western Hemisphere (Oct. 25, 2026)

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Beringia

ancient landform, Pacific Ocean

Also known as: Bering Land Bridge

Written by

Kenneth Pletcher

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Oct. 25, 2026 •History

Top Questions

What is Beringia?
Beringia refers to landforms that existed at various times between northeastern Asia and northwestern North America. The term commonly applies to the large areas that linked present-day northwestern Canada and Alaska with northeastern Siberia during the Pleistocene Epoch (2,600,000 to about 11,700 years ago). The most recent of these regions appeared roughly 38,000 years ago and remained until the end of the Pleistocene. At that time, the Bering Strait opened, separating the land connection between Alaska and Siberia.

Beringia is thought to have been at its largest roughly 20,000 years ago. Because so much of Earth’s water was frozen in glaciers, sea levels worldwide were lowered, exposing large areas of former seafloor.
2 Britannica Sources
1. Beringia
2. Alaska: Plant and animal life
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Where was Beringia located?
Beringia was a series of landforms that existed at various times between northeastern Asia and northwestern North America. The term Beringia refers to the large areas that intermittently linked present-day northwestern Canada and Alaska with northeastern Siberia during the Pleistocene Epoch.

Beringia reached its greatest extent roughly 20,000 years ago, during the latter part of the Wisconsin Glacial Stage. It occupied a vast region of dry land extending northward into territory now underwater in the southern Arctic Ocean and stretching eastward from perhaps the Lena River delta in Siberia to the Mackenzie River delta in Canada’s Yukon territory. It continued southward for some 1,000 miles through the then-dry seafloor of the Bering Strait and occupied roughly the northern half of the Bering Sea. The present-day Bering Strait separates Asia and North America.
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How was Beringia formed?
During the Pleistocene Epoch, which lasted from about 2,600,000 to about 11,700 years ago, worldwide glaciation led to significantly lower sea levels. This drop exposed large areas of dry land between Asia and North America, creating Beringia. The most recent formation of Beringia began approximately 38,000 years ago, reaching its greatest extent around 20,000 years ago. At that time, it stretched from the Lena River delta in Siberia to the Mackenzie River delta in Canada's Yukon territory. As the glaciers melted, the rising sea levels eventually submerged the land bridge, forming the Bering Strait and separating the two continents.
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Why is Beringia important in human history?
Beringia, a series of landforms that existed between northeastern Asia and northwestern North America, played a crucial role in human history. The most recent Beringia, which appeared about 38,000 years ago, is considered a primary route for human migration into the Americas.

The land bridge allowed plants and animals to move between the Old and New Worlds. It is believed that humans followed this route in search of game, although alternative theories suggest arrival by boat or a coastal land route. The native peoples of the Americas are widely believed to be descendants of ancestors from Asia who crossed Beringia.
1 Britannica Source
1. Beringia
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
What types of plants and animals lived in Beringia?
During the existence of Beringia, plants and animals moved between Asia and North America across the Bering Land Bridge. The preserve has about 400 plant species, and the tundra vegetation consists mainly of low coastal plains.
4 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How did changes in climate affect Beringia and its inhabitants?
During the Pleistocene Epoch, climate changes significantly impacted Beringia and its inhabitants. Fluctuations in climate and environment led to large-scale migrations, adaptations, and extinctions of plants and animals.

Around 20,000 years ago, the Wisconsin Glacial Stage caused sea levels to drop as much as 400 feet, creating a vast land bridge between Asia and North America. This land bridge supported tundra vegetation, allowing mammals to migrate eastward. Some theories suggest that humans followed this route in search of game.

The end of the Pleistocene brought about the extinction of many large mammals, such as mammoths and giant beavers. This extinction may have resulted from overpredation by human hunters or abrupt changes in climate and vegetation.
5 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Beringia, any in a series of landforms that once existed periodically and in various configurations between northeastern Asia and northwestern North America and that were associated with periods of worldwide glaciation and subsequent lowering of sea levels. Such dryland regions began appearing between the two continents about 70 million years ago, but the term Beringia more commonly refers to the often large areas that intermittently linked present-day northwestern Canada and northern and western Alaska, U.S., with northeastern Siberia, Russia, during the Pleistocene Epoch (about 2,600,000 to about 11,700 years ago). It is particularly associated with the most recent of these regions, which began to appear about 38,000 years ago and remained in place roughly until the end of the Pleistocene, at which time the present-day Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia (linking what are now the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea) opened and severed the intercontinental land connection. Fossil evidence strongly supports the belief that, over time, the various “land bridges” allowed plants and animals to move between the Old and New worlds; the most recent Beringia is also considered to be at least one of the ways (if not the principal route) by which humans migrated into and populated the Americas.

Generally, Beringia is now thought to have been at its greatest extent roughly 20,000 years ago, during the latter part of the Wisconsin Glacial Stage (the last glacial maximum of the Pleistocene). Because so much of Earth’s water was then frozen in glaciers, sea levels worldwide were lowered by as much as some 400 feet (120 metres), exposing large areas of former seafloor. In the Arctic and subarctic regions, at that time, Beringia is estimated to have occupied a vast region of dry land extending northward into territory now inundated by the southern Arctic Ocean and stretching eastward from perhaps as far west as the present-day Lena River delta in Siberia to the Mackenzie River delta in Canada’s Yukon territory. It continued southward for some 1,000 miles (1,600 km) through the then-dry seafloor of the Bering Strait and occupied roughly the northern half of the Bering Sea. Over the next several thousand years, as the glaciers melted and sea levels began to rise, Beringia gradually shrank in size until, eventually, the land connection was completely lost.

Although glaciation throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere was extensive during the late Wisconsin period, with ice reaching thicknesses of as much as 2.5 miles (4 km) in places, research has shown that much of Beringia had a dry climate and thus was not glaciated. This condition supported cold-hardy tundra vegetation that allowed land mammals to venture eastward into North America. According to some theories, humans followed along this overland route in search of game, while others have postulated that ancient peoples may have arrived in boats or via a more coastal land route. Although there is no clear agreement on how humans arrived in the Americas, it is widely believed that the native peoples living there now are descendants of these long-ago ancestors from Asia. Considerable paleontological, archaeological, and ethnographic research has been conducted in Arctic regions looking to fill the gaps in the prehistoric record.

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Cape EspenbergCape Espenberg, the northern tip of the Seward Peninsula, Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, western Alaska, United States.

Present-day portions of former Beringia lands on either side of the Bering Strait have been designated as protected areas. Bering Land Bridge National Preserve in Alaska occupies much of the northern and central Seward Peninsula. On the Russian side, the entire northeastern tip of the Chukchi Peninsula is now within a state-run park, established in 1993 and headquartered in the coastal town of Provideniya. A number of institutions of higher learning in the northern region conduct research on Beringia. In addition, the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre in Whitehorse, Yukon, and a museum in Provideniya are dedicated to scientific, historical, and cultural aspects of the region.

Kenneth Pletcher

Beringia

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