It is located 40 km northeast of Shokalsky Island, off the tip of the Gyda Peninsula in North Siberia.

Vilkitsky Island is bleak and windswept and is covered with tundra.

The island is crescent-shaped and it is divided in two by a narrow sound in its midst.

There is a large shallow area between Vilkitsky Island and its southern neighbor, Neupokoyev Island (Остров Неупокоева),[1] named after Konstantin Neupokoev (1884—1924), a naval officer, hydrographer and explorer of the Russian Hydrographic Service in Soviet times.

[2] Vilkitsky Island belongs to the Tyumen Oblast administrative division of the Russian Federation.