Sakhalin 1 Sakhalin Sakhalin Sakhalin (Russia) Geography Location Russian Far East, Pacific Ocean Coordinates [1] [1] 51°N 143°E Coordinates: 51°N 143°E Total islands 1Wikipedia:Please clarify Area 72,492 km2 (27,989.3 sq mi) Area rank 23rd Highest elevation 1,609 m (5,279 ft) Highest point Lopatin Country Russia Largest city Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (pop. 174,203) Demographics Population 580,000 (as of 2005) Density 8 /km2 (21 /sq mi) Ethnic groups Russians, Koreans, Nivkhs, Oroks, Evenks and Yakuts. Sakhalin (Russian: Сахалин, pronounced [səxɐˈlʲin]) is a large Russian island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N. It is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast. Sakhalin, which is about one fifth the size of Japan, is just off the east coast of Russia, and just north of Japan. Sakhalin 2 The indigenous peoples of the island are the Ainu, Oroks and Nivkhs. Sakhalin has been claimed by both Russia and Japan over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. This has led to bitter disputes between the two countries over control of the island. Russia seized the island from the Japanese near the end of World War II. Most Ainu moved to Hokkaidō when the Japanese were displaced from the island in 1949. Name The island is known in Russian as Сахалин (Sakhalin). In Chinese it is known as Kuye (simplified Chinese: 库 页; ? traditional Chinese: 庫 頁; pinyin: Kùyè) Karafuto (Japanese: 樺 太, also Sahalin (サ ハ リ ン ) ), or Saghalien. The European names derive from misinterpretation of a Manchu name ᠰ᠊ᠠᡴᡥᠠᠯᡳᡟᠠ᠊ᠠ ᡠ᠊ᠯᠠ ᠠ᠊ᠩᡤᠠ ᡥ᠊ᠠᡩᡩᠠ sahaliyan ula angga hada ("peak/craggy rock at the mouth of the Amur River"). Sahaliyan, the word that has been borrowed in the form of "Sakhalin", means "black" in Manchu and is the proper Manchu name of the Amur River (ᠰ᠊ᠠᡴᡥᠠᠯᡳᡟᠠ᠊ᠠ ᡠ᠊ᠯᠠ sahaliyan ula, literally "Black River"; see Sikhote-Alin). Its Japanese name, Karafuto (樺 太), supposedly comes from Ainu kamuy kar put ya mosir (カ ム イ ・ カラ・ プト・ ヤ ・ モ シリ, shortened to Karput カラ・ [citation needed] プト), which means "Land/Island/Country at the Shore of the God-Made (River) Mouth/Confluence." The name was used by the Japanese during their possession of its southern part (1905–1945). History Early history Sakhalin was inhabited in the Neolithic Stone Age. Flint implements, like those found in Siberia, have been found at Dui and Kusunai in great numbers, as well as polished stone hatchets, like European examples, primitive pottery with decorations like those of the Olonets, and stone weights for nets. Afterwards a population to whom bronze was known left traces in earthen walls and kitchen-middens on the Aniva Bay. Among the indigenous people of Sakhalin are the Ainu on the southern De Vries (1643) maps Sakhalin's eastern half, the Oroks in the central region and the Nivkhs on the northern [citation needed] promontories, but is not aware that he is visiting part. Chinese chronicled the Xianbei and Hezhe tribes , an island (map from 1682). who had a way of life based on fishing. The Mongol Empire made some efforts to subjugate the native people of Sakhalin starting in about 1264 CE. According to Yuanshi, the official history of the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols militarily subdued the Guwei (骨 嵬, Gǔwéi), and by 1308, all inhabitants of Sakhalin had surrendered to the Mongols. The Nivkhs and the Oroks were subjugated earlier, whereas the Ainu people submitted to the Mongols later.[citation needed] Following their subjugation, Gǔwéi elders made tributary visits to Yuan posts located at Wuleihe, Nanghar, and Boluohe, until the end of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China (1368). In the early Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), the tributary relationship was re-established. Following the introduction of Chinese political and commercial institutions in the Amur region, by the middle of the 15th century the Sakhalin Ainu were making frequent tributary visits to Chinese-controlled outposts. The Chinese in the Ming Dynasty knew the island as Kuyi or Kuwu (Chinese: 苦 兀; pinyin: Kǔwù), and later (and at present) as Kuye (Chinese: 庫 頁; pinyin: Kùyè). There is some evidence that the Ming eunuch admiral Yishiha reached Sakhalin in 1413 during one of his expeditions to the lower Amur, and granted Ming titles to a local chieftain.[2] Under the Ming Dynasty, commerce in Northeast Asia and Sakhalin was placed under the "system for subjugated peoples", or ximin tizhi. These suggest that the island was at least nominally included under the administration of the Nurgan Regional Military Commission which was set up by Yishiha near today's village of Tyr on the Siberian mainland in 1411, and operated until the mid-1430s. A Ming Sakhalin 3 boundary stone still exists on the island. European and Japanese exploration According to Wei Yuan's work Military history of the Qing Dynasty (Chinese: 聖 武 記; pinyin: Shèngwǔ Jì), the Later Jin sent 400 troops to Sakhalin in 1616, after a newfound interest because of northern Japanese contacts with the area, but later withdrew as it was considered there was no threat from the island. A Japanese settlement in the southern end of Sakhalin of Ootomari was established in 1679 in a colonization attempt. Cartographers of the Matsumae clan created a map of the island and called it "Kita-Ezo" (Northern Ezo, Ezo being the old name for the islands north of Honshu). The 1689 Nerchinsk Treaty between Russia and China, which defined the Stanovoy Mountains as the border, made no explicit mention of the island. Yet, the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) did consider the island as part of its territory. Policies of the Qing Dynasty followed a similar pattern to the previous Ming Dynasty, which drew Sakhalin peoples further into the "system for subjugated peoples". Local people Display of Sakhalin on maps varied throughout were forced to pay tribute at Qing posts, and Qing officials granted the 18th century. This map from a 1773 atlas, based on the earlier work by d'Anville, who in his some titles to local elders and entrusted them with the task of "keeping turn made use of the information collected by the peace". By the mid-18th century, Qing officials had registered 56 Jesuits in 1709, asserts the existence of surname groups; of these, Qing sources note that six clans and 148 Sakhalin—but only assigns to it the northern half households were those of Ainu and Nivkh who came under the Qing of the island and its northeastern coast (with Cape Patience, discovered by de Vries in 1643). Cape administrative umbrella on Sakhalin. However, as the Chinese Aniva, also discovered by de Vries, and Cape governments did not have a military presence on the island, people Crillon (Black Cape) are, however, thought to be from Japan attempted to colonise the island. part of the mainland The first European known to visit Sakhalin was Martin Gerritz de Vries, who mapped Cape Patience and Cape Aniva on the island's east coast in 1643. The Dutch captain, however, was not aware of their being on an island, and 17th century maps usually showed these points—and often Hokkaido, too—as parts of the mainland. As part of a nationwide Sino-French cartographic program, the Jesuits Jean-Baptiste Régis, Pierre Jartoux, and Xavier Ehrenbert Fridelli joined a Chinese team visiting the lower Amur (known to them under its Manchu name, Saghalien Ula, i.e. the "Black River"), in 1709, and learned from the "Ke tcheng" natives of the lower Amur about the existence of the offshore island nearby. The Jesuits learned that the islanders were said to have been good at reindeer husbandry. They reported that the mainlanders used a variety of names to refer to the island, but Saghalien anga bata, i.e. "the Island [at] the mouth of the Black River" was the most common one, meanwhile the name [3] "Huye" (presumably, "Kuye", 庫 頁) they had heard in Beijing was completely unknown to the locals. Sakhalin 4 The Jesuits, however, did not have a chance to visit the island personally, and the inadequate information about its geography provided by the Ke tcheng people and the Manchus who had been to the island would not allow them to identify it with the land visited by de Vries in 1643. As a result, many 17th century maps showed a rather strangely shaped Sakhalin, which included only the northern half of the island (with Cape Patience), while Cape Aniva discovered by de Vries and the "Black Cape" (Cape Crillon) were thought to be part of the mainland. It was not until the expedition of Jean-François de La Pérouse (1787), who charted most of the Strait of Tartary, but was not able to pass through its northern "bottleneck" due to contrary winds, that the island on European maps assumed a form similar to what is familiar to modern readers. A few islanders La Perouse met near what is today called the Strait of Nevelskoy told him that the island is called La Perouse charted most of the southwestern "Tchoka" (or at least that is how he recorded the name in French), and coast of Sakhalin (or "Tchoka", as he heard natives call it) in 1787 it was used on some maps thereafter. The Russian explorer Adam Johann von Krusenstern visited Sakhalin in 1805, but regarded it as a peninsula. Alarmed by the visits of European powers, Japan proclaimed its sovereignty over the whole island in 1807. The Japanese say that it was Mamiya Rinzō who really discovered the Strait of Tartary in 1809.