Wrangel, Ferdinand Petrovich (Врангель, Фердинанд Петрович in Russian) (12.29.1796 (1.9.1797) — 5.25 (6.6).1870), Russian navigator, admiral, Honorable Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St.Petersburg (1855), one of the founders of the Russian Geographic Society .

Wrangel graduated from the Naval College in 1815. He took part in Vasily Golovnin's world cruise on the ship "Kamchatka" in 1817-1819. Wrangel led the Kolymskaya expedition in search of northern lands. He established that north of the Kolyma River and Cape Shelagsky there was an open sea, not dry land, as people thought. Together with Fyodor Matyushkin and P.Kuzmin, Wrangel described the Siberian coastline from the Indigirka River to the Kolyuchinskaya Bay . After questioning native population, he determined that there was an island in the Arctic Ocean, that would later be called after Wrangel. His expedition made a valuable research in glaciology, geomagnetics, and climatology and also collected data about natural resources and native population of that remote area. Wrangel led the Russian world cruise on the ship "Krotky" in 1825-1827. He held a post of the chief administrator of the Russian settlements in North America in 1829-1835. Wrangel was the president of the Russian-American Company in 1840-1849. He also was the Minister of the Navy in 1855-1857.

Wrangel retired in 1864. He was against selling Alaska to the United States. An island in the Arctic Ocean, a mountain, and a cape in Alaska bear his name. Wrangel wrote a book "Journey along the northern coastline of Siberia and the Arctic Ocean" and a few other books about the people of the northwestern America.

In English texts, Wrangel is sometimes spelled Vrangel, which more closely represents its pronunciation. In Alaska place names, it is also spelled Wrangell.