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Sakhalin (Сахлин), also Saghalien, is a large elongated island in the North Pacific, lying between 45° 50' and 54° 24' N, in East Siberia, Russia. The capital of Sakhalin is Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Japanese: Toyohara (豊原)).

The European names derived from misinterpretation of a Manchu name sahaliyan ula angga hada (peak of the mouth of Amur River). Sahaliyan means black in Manchu and refers to Amur River (sahaliyan ula). Its proper Ainu name, Karafuto (樺太) or Krafto, was restored to the island by the Japanese during their possession of its southern part (1905-1945).

History

Sakhalin was inhabited in the Neolithic Stone Age. Flint implements, exactly like those of Siberia and Russia, have been found at Dui and Kusunai in great numbers, as well as polished stone hatchets, like the European ones, primitive pottery with decorations like those of 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.

Sakhalin, whose natives made contact with the Manchu Empire until the 19th century, became known to Europeans from the travels of Martin Gerritz de Vries in the 17th century, and still better from those of La Pérouse (1787) and Krusenstern (1805). Both, however, regarded it as a peninsula, and were unaware of the existence of the Strait of Tartary, which was discovered in 1809 by a Japanese, Mamiya Rinzo. The Russian navigator Nevelskoi in 1849 definitively established the existence and navigability of this strait. Japan proclaimed sovereignty over the whole island in 1807. The Russians made their first permanent settlement on Sakhalin in 1857 as a Czarist penal colony; but the southern part of the island was held by the Japanese until the Treaty of Saint Petersburg 1875, when they ceded it to Russia in exchange for the Kuril islands. By the Treaty of Portsmouth (U.S.A.) of 1905 the southern part of the island below 50° N was retro-ceded to Japan, the Russians retaining the other three-fifths of the area.

In August 1945, Russia again took over the control of Sakhalin. Since January 2, 1947, the Sakhalin Region, in its present form, was officially defined and integrated as a part of the Russian Federation.

Although no final peace treaty has been signed, and the status of the neighbouring Kuril Islands remain disputed. Japan renounced its claims of sovereignty over southern Sakhalin in the Treaty of San Francisco (1952), but did not approve Russian sovereignty over it. From Japan's official position, its attribution is not determined yet.

In 1983, a civilian airliner flew over Sakhalin and was shot down by the Soviets (see Korean Air Flight KAL-007).

On May 28, 1995, an earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale killing 2,000 people of the town of Neftegorsk.

Geography

Sakhalin is separated from the mainland by the narrow and shallow Strait of Tartary or Mamiya Strait, which often freezes in winter in its narrower part, and from Yezo (Japan) by the Strait of La Pérouse. Sakhalin is the largest island of the Russian Federation, being 948 km (589 miles) long, and 25 to 170 km (16 to 105 miles) wide, with an area of 78,000 km² (24,560 sq. miles).

Its orography and geological structure are imperfectly known. Two parallel ranges of mountains traverse it from north to south, reaching 600-1500 m (2000-5000 ft.). The Western Sakhalin Mountains peak in Mt. Ichara, 1481 m (4860 ft.), while the Eastern Sakhalin Mountains's highest peak is Mt. Lopatin 1609 m (5279 ft.) is also the island's highest mountain. Tym-Poronaiskaya Valley separates the two ranges. Susuanaisky and Tonino-Anivsky ranges traverse the island in the south, while Northern-Sakhalin plain occupy most of its north.

Crystalline rocks crop out at several capes; Cretaceous limestones, containing an abundant and specific fauna of gigantic ammonites, occur at Dui on the west coast, and Tertiary conglomerates, sandstones, marls and clays, folded by subsequent upheavals, in many parts of the island. The clays, which contain layers of good coal and an abundant fossil vegetation, show that during the Miocene period Sakhalin formed part of a continent which comprised north Asia, Alaska and Japan, and enjoyed a comparatively warm climate. The Pliocene deposits contain a mollusc fauna more arctic than that which exists at the present time, indicating probably that the connexion between the Pacific and Arctic Oceans was broader than it is now.

Main rivers: the Tym, 400 km (250 miles) long and navigable by rafts and light boats for 80 km (50 miles), flows north and north-east with numerous rapids and shallows, and enters the Sea of Okhotsk. The Poronai flows south-south-east to the Gulf of Patience or Shichiro Bay, on the south-east coast. Three other small streams enter the wide semicircular Gulf of Aniva or Higashifushimi Bay at the southern extremity of the island.

Demographics

By , the native inhabitants consisted of some 2000 Nivkhs, 1300 Ainus, with 750 Orochons, 200 Evenks and some Yakuts. The Gilyaks in the north support themselves by fishing and hunting.

The Ainus inhabit the south part of the island. From the 32,000 Russians (of whom over 22,150 were convicts) at the beginning of 20th century, the population grew to 673,100 today, 83% from whom are Russians.

The capital of Sakhalin is Yuzhno Sakhalinsk (Japanese: Toyohara (豊原)), a city of about 200,000 which has a large Korean minority who immigrated to the island by their free will or were brought for compulsory service during World War II, to work in the coal mines.

Japanese were deported following the conquest of the southern portion of the island by the Soviet Union in 1945 at the end of World War II.

Climate

Owing to the influence of the raw, foggy Sea of Okhotsk, the climate is very cold. At Dui the average yearly temperature is only 0.5° C (January -15.9°; July 16.1°), 1.7° at Kusunai and 3.1° at Aniva (January, -12.5°; July, 15.7°). At Alexandrovsk near Dui the annual range is from 27° in July to -39° in January, while at Rykovsk in the interior the minimum is -45° C. The rainfall averages 570 mm. Thick clouds for the most part shut out the sun; while the cold current from the Sea of Okhotsk, aided by north-east winds, brings immense ice-floes to the east coast in summer.

Flora and fauna

The whole of the island is covered with dense forests, mostly coniferous. The Jezo spruce (Picea jezoensis), the Sakhalin fir (Abies sachalinsis) and the Daurian larch (Larix gmelinii) are the chief trees; on the upper parts of the mountains are the Siberian dwarf pine (Pinus pumila) and the Kurile bamboo (Arundinaria kurilei). Birches, both Siberian silver birch (Betula platyphylla) and Erman's birch (B. ermanii), poplar, elm, Bird cherry (Prunus padus), Japanese yew (Taxus cuspidata) and several willows are mixed with the conifers; while farther south the maple, rowan and oak, as also the Japanese Panax ricinifolium, the Amur cork tree (Phellodendron amurense), the Spindle (Euonymus macropterus) and the vine (Vitis thunbergii) make their appearance. The underwoods abound in berry-bearing plants (e.g. cloudberry, cranberry, crowberry, red whortleberry), Red-berried elder (Sambucus racemosa), wild raspberry and Spiraea.

Bears, foxes, otters and sables are numerous, as also the reindeer in the north, and the musk deer, hares, squirrels, rats and mice everywhere. The bird fauna is mostly the common east Siberian, but there are some endemic or near-endemic breeding species, notably the endangered Spotted Greenshank (Tringa guttifer) and the Sakhalin Leaf Warbler (Phylloscopus borealoides). The rivers swarm with fish, especially species of salmon (Oncorhynchus). Numerous whales visit the sea-coast. Sea-lions, seals and dolphins are a source of profit.

Economy

A little coal is mined and some rye, wheat, oats, barley and vegetables are grown, although the period during which vegetation can grow averages less than 100 days. Fishing is actively prosecuted.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Sakhalin has experienced an oil boom with extensive petroleum exploration and mining by most large oil multinationals. Russia is in the process of building a pipeline from Sakhalin Island to China, and then onto Japan (resisting intense diplomatic lobbying from Japan to build a pipeline directly to Japan, at Japan's expense).

In 2003, the island was the second largest recipient of foreign investment in Russia after Moscow. Unemployment in 2002 is only 2%.

See also: Russian Far East, Bronislaw Pilsudski

External links and references

• The Sakhalin Times, a fortnightly English newspaper published in Yuzhno Sakhalinsk
• http://www.sakhalin.ru/Engl/
• C. H. Hawes, In the Uttermost East (London, 1903). (P. A. K.; J. T. BE.)