Americans shocked to discover US and Russia are actually less than three miles apart

The world's largest ocean may lie between them, but at their closest point the US and Russia are not even three miles apart.

Despite this, the closest point between the two countries as about as far as you can get timewise.

The spherical nature of the Earth means that you can go so far west that it becomes the east and vice versa, despite what the flat-earthers say you're not going to drop off the side of the planet and plummet into the void.

Instead, you'll be crossing time zones until you reach a different part of the world altogether, and if you head for the Diomede Islands, then you can do a lot of travelling with very little distance.

Located in the Bering Strait which divides the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, the Diomede Islands consist of one large lump of rock called Big Diomede and a smaller one to the east inventively called Little Diomede.

That's the Russian island of Big Diomede on the right, and the US island Little Diomede in the distance on the left (Jacques Langevin/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)

The distance between them is just less than three miles and one of the island apiece is territory of the US and Russia.

Russia has Big Diomede, which was home to a military base during the Second World War and the Cold War and currently houses a border patrol station, but has no permanent residents.

That might make it prime fodder for a new trade tariff, though Russia was left off Donald Trump's list.

Meanwhile, just across the water is Little Diomede, which is technically part of Alaska and has a few dozen permanent residents.

Together the islands are also known as Tomorrow Island and Yesterday Island respectively because the International Date Line runs through the narrow gap of water between them.

Despite a distance gap of under three miles the time difference between the two islands is 21 hours, so at almost all times the Russian island is a day ahead of the American owned one.

One could even walk between the islands in the winter when the water between them freezes and makes a crossing by foot possible.

Some Americans have been surprised to learn this, commenting that they 'hardly think of Russia as our neighbors' and that they 'never knew that'.

Well now they do knew.

Others jokingly remembered the remarks from right-wing US politician Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska who once said she 'could see Russia from her backyard'.

If you lived on Little Diomede then you really could see Russia from there.

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