All islands are quite flat, mostly with sandy spits and coastal lagoons in their shores.

The group's largest island is Isachenko (Russian: Остров Исаченко),[2] named after Boris Lavrent'evich Isachenko Russian microbiologist and botanist of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

[4] This island group belongs to the Krasnoyarsk Krai administrative division of the Russian Federation.

They are also part of the Great Arctic State Nature Reserve (Russian: Большой Арктический государственный природный заповедник), the largest nature reserve of the Russian Federation.

[5] The Kirov Archipelago is not to be confused with Kirovskiye Ostrova (Russian: Кировские Острова), a historic district of Saint Petersburg formed by a group of three coastal islands in the Gulf of Finland north of the Neva river delta.