* 1875 – The Treaty of Saint Petersburg between Japan and Russia is ratified, providing for the exchange of Sakhalin for the Kuril Islands.

Historically, they spoke the Ainu language and related varieties and lived in Hokkaidō, the Kuril Islands, and much of Sakhalin.

As a result of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg ( 1875 ), the Kuril Islands were handed over to Japan, along with its Ainu subjects.

In 2004, the small Ainu community living in Kamchatka Krai wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin, urging him to reconsider any move to award the Southern Kuril Islands to Japan.

During the Invasion of the Kuril Islands, Akira Nakamura ( b. 1897 ) was captured by the Soviet army and his elder son Takeshi Nakamura ( 1925 – 1945 ) was killed in the battle.

Japan claims the Russian-administered Kuril Islands, the four southernmost isles of the island chain north of Hokkaido, annexed by the Soviet Union following World War II.

A territorial dispute with Russia, dating from the end of World War II, over the two southernmost of the Kuril Islands, Etorofu and Kunashiri, and the smaller Shikotan and Habomai Islands northeast of Hokkaidō remains a sensitive spot in Japanese-Russian relations as of 2005.

In summer, however, sunshine hours are lowest on exposed parts of the Pacific coast where fogs from the Oyashio current create persistent cloud similar to that found on the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin.

Japan has territorial disputes with Russia over the Kuril Islands ( Northern Territories ), with South Korea over Liancourt Rocks ( known as " Dokdo " in Korea, " Takeshima " in Japan ), with China and Taiwan over the Senkaku Islands and with China over the status of Okinotorishima.

High densities have also been reported but not quantified in the western North Pacific around the Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk, Kuril Islands, Kamchatka and the Commander Islands and in the Southern Hemisphere off the coasts of South Australia, Patagonia, off the coast of southern Brazil and the tip of southern Africa.

Breeding colonies can be found in the Pacific from the Kuril Islands, around the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk throughout the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands to southeast Alaska, and in the Atlantic from the Gulf of St. Lawrence through Greenland and the coast of Ireland down to Portugal, as well as in the high Arctic islands.

" These allegations were due to Beria's suggestion to his assistants that to improve foreign relations it was reasonable to transfer the Kaliningrad Oblast to Germany, part of Karelia to Finland, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic to Romania and the Kuril Islands to Japan.

The discovery of large populations in the North Pacific was the major economic driving force behind Russian expansion into Kamchatka, the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, as well as a cause for conflict with Japan and foreign hunters in the Kuril Islands.

* Nemo Peak, a volcano in the Kuril Islands

The andesite line follows the western edge of the islands off California and passes south of the Aleutian arc, along the eastern edge of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kuril Islands, Japan, the Mariana Islands, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand's North Island.

These points are: the boundary with Poland on a long Vistula Spit separating the Gdańsk Bay from the Vistula Lagoon ; and the farthest southeast of the Kuril Islands.

Russia's major islands and archipelagos include Novaya Zemlya, the Franz Josef Land, the Severnaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island, the Kuril Islands, and Sakhalin.

Tufted Puffins form dense breeding colonies during the summer reproductive season from British Columbia, throughout southeastern Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, Kamchatka, the Kuril Islands and throughout the Sea of Okhotsk.

The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (,, or ; ; Japanese: ), in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region, form a volcanic archipelago that stretches approximately northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean.

Pinnipeds: The Kuril islands are home to two species of Eared Seal, the Steller Sea Lion and northern fur seal, both of which aggregate on several smaller islands along the chain in the summer to form several of the largest reproductive rookeries in Russia.

Image: Onekotan Island, Kuril Islands, Russian Federation. JPG | Snow cover highlights the calderas and volcanic cones that form the northern and southern ends of Onekotan.

A katorga ( penal colony ) was established by Russia on Sakhalin in 1857, but the southern part of the island was held by the Japanese until the 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg ( 1875 ), when they ceded it to Russia in exchange for the Kuril Islands.

In 1799 the merchant companies were united in Russian-American company “ for the trades on the territory of the Aleutian and Kuril islands and the rest part of North-Eastern sea, belonging to Russia by the right of discovery .” Grigorii Ivanovich Shelikhov, an outstanding seafarer, played an important role in mastering enormous spaces of northern part of Pacific ocean.

All of the islands are under the Russian jurisdiction, but Japan claims the two southernmost large islands ( Iturup and Kunashir ) as part of its territory, as well as Shikotan and the Habomai islets, which has led to the ongoing Kuril Islands dispute.

Atlasov Island, known in Russian as Ostrov Atlasova ( Остров Атласова ), or in Japanese as Araido ( 阿頼度島 ), is the northernmost island and volcano and also the highest volcano of the Kuril islands, part of the Sakhalin Oblast in Russia.

A Czarist penal colony was established in 1857, but the southern part of the island was held by the Japanese until the 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg ( 1875 ), when they ceded it to Russia in exchange for the Kuril islands.

Severo-Kurilsk (;, Kashiwabara ) is a town and the administrative center of Severo-Kurilsky District of Sakhalin Oblast, Russia, located in the northern part of the Kuril Islands, on the island of Paramushir.

The Invasion of the Kuril Islands, also called Kuril Islands Landing Operation ( Курильская десантная операция in Russian ) was the Soviet military operation aimed at capturing the Kuril Islands from the Japanese in 1945 as part of the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation when the plans to land on Hokkaido were abandoned.

Shikotan Russian ( Шикотан ), Japanese ( 色丹島 ), or シコタㇴ ), is one of the bigger islands of the Kuril Islands, which are part of the Russian Federation.

It comprises the southernmost part of the Kuril chain with the islands of Kunashir, Shikotan, and the Habomai rocks.

In 1719 – 1721, Luzhin took part in drawing a map of Kamchatka and Kuril Islands together with Ivan Yevreinov.

The Sea of Okhotsk () is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, lying between the Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, the island of Hokkaidō to the south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a long stretch of eastern Siberian coast ( including the Shantar Islands ) along the west and north.

It is found in the Pacific Northwest of North America, northwards from the Puget Sound along the British Columbia coast ( including the Queen Charlotte Islands ), along the Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to the far eastern Bering Sea coast of Russia, and may also occur on the Kuril Islands and the coasts of Kamchatka.

Location of Kuril Islands in the Pacific Ocean | Western Pacific.

The islands themselves are summits of stratovolcanoes that are a direct result of the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Okhotsk Plate, which forms the Kuril Trench some east of the islands.

Owing to their location along the Pacific shelf edge and the confluence of Okhotsk Sea gyre and the southward Oyashio Current, the Kuril islands are surrounded by waters that are among the most productive in the North Pacific, supporting a wide range and high abundance of marine life.

Japanese sea lions were primarily found in the Sea of Japan along the coastal areas of the Korean Peninsula, the mainlands of the Japanese Archipelago ( the both sides on the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Japan ), the Kuril islands, and southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Inhabitants of the following islands and regions are not considered to be Pacific Islanders: Russia's Kuril Islands, Alaska's Aleutian Islands, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and Tasmania, as they are not located within the three regions of Oceania ( Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia ).

Pigeon Guillemots range across the Northern Pacific from the Kuril Islands and the Kamchatka Peninsula in Siberia to coasts in western North America from Alaska to California.

Like the more northerly Kuril Islands, it has an extremely strong seasonal lag, with temperatures highest in August and lowest in February, though it is not so gloomy as extremely foggy North Pacific islands like Simushir or the Aleutian Islands.

Oncorhynchus masou, known as the masu salmon or the cherry salmon, is a species of salmon found in the Western Pacific Ocean along East Asia, ranging from the Kamchatka, Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, Primorsky Krai south through Korea, Taiwan and Japan ).

Chum are found around the north Pacific, in the waters of Korea, Japan, and the Okhotsk and Bering seas ( Kamchatka, Chukotka, Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, Khabarovsk Krai, Primorsky Krai ), British Columbia in Canada, and from Alaska to California in the United States.

The best examples of volcanic arcs with both sets of characteristics are in the North Pacific, with the Aleutian Arc consisting of the Aleutian Islands and their extension the Aleutian Range on the Alaska Peninsula, and the Kuril-Kamchatka Arc comprising the Kuril Islands and southern Kamchatka Peninsula.

Immediately following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, a seismic gap analysis of the seismic zones around the Pacific Ocean identified the Central Kuril segment of the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench subduction zone as the most likely to give rise to a major earthquake.

In an effort to find the Russian fleet in the Pacific Ocean during the Crimean war, a French-British naval force reached the port of Hakodate, open to British ships as a result of the Friendship Treaty of 1854, and sailed further North, seizing the Russian-American Company's possessions on the island of Urup in the Kuril archipelago.

The Kuril – Kamchatka Trench or Kuril Trench () is an oceanic trench in the northwest Pacific Ocean.