* 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.

According to Alexei Nakamura, as of 2012, there are only 205 Ainu living in Russia ( up from just 12 people who self-identified as Ainu in 2008 ) and they along with the Kurile Kamchadals ( Itelmen of Kuril islands ) are fighting for official recognition.

They settled down near Kurile Lake, which was inhabited by the Kamchatka Ainu and North Kuril Ainu.

Urup (,, ) is an uninhabited volcanic island in the Kuril Islands chain in the south of the Sea of Okhotsk, northwest Pacific Ocean.

Paramushir (, Paramushir ; Paramushiru-tō, ), is a volcanic island in the northern portion of Kuril Islands chain in the Sea of Okhotsk in the northwest Pacific Ocean.

* Chikurachki, (, ; Chikura-dake ) with a height of is the highest peak on Paramushir and the third highest in the Kuril Islands.

There are also small numbers of Japanese people in Russia some whose heritage date back to the times when both countries shared the territories of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands ; some Japanese communists settled in the Soviet Union, including Mutsuo Hakamada, the brother of former Japanese Communist Party chairman Satomi Hakamada whose daughter Irina Hakamada is a notable Russian political figure.

These islands include the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador ; the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, United States ; the Russian islands of Sakhalin and Kuril Islands ; Taiwan and other islands of the Republic of China ; the Philippines ; islands in the South China Sea, which includes the disputed South China Sea Islands ; most of the islands of Indonesia ; and the island nation of Japan, which comprises the Japanese Archipelago.

The Ainu languages that are now spoken by Ainu minorities in Hokkaidō ; and were formerly spoken in southern and central Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands ( an area also known as Ezo ), and perhaps northern Honshū island by the Emishi people ( until approximately 1000 CE ), are associated with the founding Jōmon people of Japan from than 14, 000 years ago or earlier, and the Satsumon culture of Hokkaidō, although the Ainu also had contact with the Paleo-Siberian Okhotsk culture whose modern descendants include the Nivkh people ( whose original homeland was mostly occupied by the Tungusic people ), which could have linguistically influenced the Ainu language.

* japonica ( Hartert, 1897 ) central and s Kuril Islands, Hokkaido, Honshū and Hondo, Japan ;

In February 2011, Japanese ultra-rightists held a protest over the Kuril islands dispute outside of the Russian embassy in Tokyo, during which they dragged a Russian flag on the ground ; Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov stated that his ministry had asked the Japanese government to launch a criminal case over the incident.

Kunashir Island (;, Kunashiri-tō ; or クナシㇽ, Kunasir ), possibly meaning Black Island or Grass Island in Ainu, is the southernmost island of the Kuril Islands, which are controlled by Russia and claimed by Japan ( see Kuril Islands dispute ).

Iturup (; Ainu: エトゥオロシ, Etuworop-sir ;, Etorofu-tō ) is the largest island of the South Kuril Islands.

Onekotan Island (; Japanese 温禰古丹島 ; Onekotan-tō, occasionally Onnekotan-tō, ) is an uninhabited volcanic island located near the northern end of the Kuril Islands chain in the Sea of Okhotsk in the northwest Pacific Ocean.

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.

( By Japanese reckoning, Hokkaido also incorporates several of the Kuril Islands.

Recent disputes with neighboring countries like China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Russia over territories such as the Senkaku Islands, Liancourt Rocks, and the Kuril Islands, as well as accusations of Japanese whitewashing of history in various textbook controversies have also complicated this process.

In Japanese, the Kuril Islands are known as the Chishima Islands ( Kanji:, literally, Thousand Islands Archipelago ), also known as the Kuriru Islands ( Kanji:, literally, Kuril Archipelago ).

The notable exception is the now extinct Japanese Sea lion which was known to occasionally haul out on the Kuril islands.

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.

After a year of negotiations, Japan agreed to renounce its claims to Sakhalin, with compensation for Japanese residents, access by the fishing fleet to the Sea of Okhotsk, ten-years free use of Russian ports in the area and ownership of all of the Kuril Islands.

It was used in various senses, sometimes meaning the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō, and sometimes meaning lands and waters further north in the Sea of Okhotsk, like Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.

In 1997, Ryutaro Hashimoto appointed Obuchi as Minister of Foreign Affairs, where he shone in negotiations with Russia over Japanese claims in the Kuril Islands, as well as negotiations over the unification of Korea.

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.

Following the transfer of the Kuril Islands to Japan by the Treaty of St Petersburg, 1875, Oyakoba as it is called by the Japanese, became the northernmost island of the empire and subject of much aesthetic praise, described in haiku, ukiyo-e, etc.

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.

Subspecies superciliosus ( sometimes called the Japanese Shrike ) breeds on the islands of Sakhalin, Kuril and Japan and winters in Hainan, Sumatra, Java, and the Sundas.

* Zelkova serrata — Keyaki or Japanese Zelkova ( Japan, Korea, Kuril Islands in Russia, Taiwan, China )

During the winter of 1942 – 43, the Japanese reinforced and fortified the islands — not necessarily to prepare for an island-hopping operation across the Aleutians, but to prevent a U. S. operation across the Kuril Islands.

During the Invasion of the Kuril Islands, Soviet landed on Paramushir on August 18, 1945, and combat operations continued through August 23, ending with the surrender of the surviving members of the Japanese garrison.