Kuril Islands

Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (Japanese, Chishima-rettō, Russian, Kuril’skiye Ostrova, from the word kurit’, “to smoke”), chain of about 30 large and 20 small volcanic islands in far eastern Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. The islands extend for about 1,200 km (746 mi) from north-eastern Hokkaido in Japan to southern Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The largest islands are Paramushir, Onekotan, Urup, Iturup, and Kunashir. The Kurils contain many hot springs and active volcanoes; their land area totals about 15,590 sq km (6,020 sq mi). The climate of the islands is wet, with cold, snowy winters. Tundra covering the northern islands gives way to thick forest in the south. Hunting, fishing, and sulphur mining are the chief occupations of the inhabitants, among whom are the Ainu.

The Kurils were settled by both the Russians and Japanese in the 18th century. In 1875 Japan ceded to Russia the nearby island of Sakhalin in exchange for full Japanese possession of the Kurils. The islands were captured by the Soviet Union during World War II, but Japan maintained a claim to the four southernmost islands. In the early 1990s Japan increased diplomatic pressure for return of the disputed islands, which became a focus of contention between Russia and Japan. In 1992 the Japanese government made economic aid to Russia conditional on the return of the islands; the Russian government insisted on the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Japanese territory as a precondition for the return of the islands (there are major United States bases in Japan, particularly on Okinawa), and there were sporadic clashes between Russian patrol boats and Japanese fishing boats in the area. There have been various attempts to discuss the territorial dispute at a high political level in the last ten years, including a meeting between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Japanese prime minister, Yoshiro Mori, in March 2001, but no substantial progress has so far been made. The Kurils are administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast, Russia. In 1994 a major undersea earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale shook the islands, killing at least 16 people.