Early history Humans lived on Sakhalin in the
Neolithic Stone Age. Flint implements such as those found in
Siberia have been found at Dui and
Kusunai in great numbers, as well as polished stone hatchets similar to European examples, primitive pottery with decorations like those of the
Olonets, and stone weights used with fishing nets. A later population familiar with bronze left traces in earthen walls and kitchen-
middens on
Aniva Bay. (1643) mapped Sakhalin's eastern promontories without realising that he had visited an island (map from 1682).
Indigenous people of Sakhalin include the
Ainu in the southern half, the
Oroks in the central region, and the
Nivkhs in the north.
Yuan and Ming tributaries After the
Mongols conquered the Jin dynasty (1234), they suffered raids by the
Nivkh and
Udege peoples. In response, the Mongols established an administration post at Nurgan (present-day
Tyr, Russia) at the junction of the
Amur and
Amgun rivers in 1263, and forced the submission of the two peoples. From the Nivkh perspective, their surrender to the Mongols essentially established a military alliance against the Ainu who had invaded their lands. According to the
History of Yuan, a group of people known as the
Guwei (, the Nivkh name for Ainu) from Sakhalin invaded and fought with the Jilimi (Nivkh people) every year. On 30 November 1264, the Mongols attacked the Ainu. The Ainu resisted the Mongol invasions but by 1308 had been subdued. They paid tribute to the Mongol
Yuan dynasty at posts in Wuliehe, Nanghar, and Boluohe. The Chinese
Ming dynasty (1368–1644) placed Sakhalin under its "system for subjugated peoples" (
ximin tizhi). From 1409 to 1411 the Ming established an outpost called the
Nurgan Regional Military Commission near the ruins of
Tyr on the Siberian mainland, which continued operating until the mid-1430s. 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. The Ming recruited headmen from Sakhalin for administrative posts such as commander (), assistant commander (), and "official charged with subjugation" (). In 1431, one such assistant commander, Alige, brought
marten pelts as tribute to the Wuliehe post. In 1437, four other assistant commanders (Zhaluha, Sanchiha, Tuolingha, and Alingge) also presented tribute. According to the
Ming Veritable Records, these posts, like the position of headman, were hereditary and passed down the patrilineal line. During these tributary missions, the headmen would bring their sons, who later inherited their titles. In return for tribute, the Ming awarded them with silk uniforms.
Nivkh women in Sakhalin married Han Chinese Ming officials when the Ming took tribute from Sakhalin and the Amur river region.
Japanese exploration and colonization described Sakhalin as an island in his map. In 1635,
Matsumae Kinhiro, the second daimyō of
Matsumae Domain in Hokkaidō, sent Satō Kamoemon and Kakizaki Kuroudo on an expedition to Sakhalin. One of the Matsumae explorers, Kodō Shōzaemon, stayed on the island in the winter of 1636 and sailed along the east coast to Taraika (now
Poronaysk) in the spring of 1637. In an early colonization attempt, a Japanese settlement was established at
Ōtomari on Sakhalin's southern end in 1679. Cartographers of the
Matsumae clan drew a map of the island and called it "Kita-Ezo" (Northern Ezo,
Ezo being the old Japanese name for the islands north of
Honshu). In the 1780s, the influence of the Japanese
Tokugawa Shogunate on the Ainu of southern Sakhalin increased significantly. By the beginning of the 19th century, the Japanese economic zone extended midway up the east coast, to Taraika. With the exception of the Nayoro Ainu located on the west coast in close proximity to China, most Ainu stopped paying tribute to the Qing dynasty. The Matsumae clan was nominally in charge of Sakhalin, but they neither protected nor governed the Ainu there. Instead they extorted the Ainu for Chinese silk, which they sold in
Honshu as Matsumae's special product. To obtain Chinese silk, the Ainu fell into debt, owing much fur to the Santan (
Ulch people), who lived near the Qing office. The Ainu also sold the silk uniforms (
mangpao,
bufu, and
chaofu) given to them by the Qing, which made up the majority of what the Japanese knew as
nishiki and
jittoku. As dynastic uniforms, the silk was of considerably higher quality than that traded at
Nagasaki, and enhanced Matsumae prestige as exotic items. Eventually the Tokugawa government, realizing that they could not depend on the Matsumae, took control of Sakhalin in 1807. Japan proclaimed sovereignty over Sakhalin in 1807; in 1809,
Mamiya Rinzō claimed that it was an island.
European exploration by
d'Anville, who in his turn made use of the information collected by
Jesuits in 1709, asserts the existence of Sakhalinbut only assigns to it the northern half of the island and its northeastern coast (with
Cape Patience, discovered by
de Vries in 1643). Cape Aniva, also discovered by de Vries, and
Cape Crillon (
Black Cape) are, however, thought to form 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 unaware that it was an island, and 17th-century maps usually showed these points (and often Hokkaido as well) as part of the mainland. As part of a nationwide Sino-French cartographic program,
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, Sahaliyan Ula, "the Black River") in 1709, and learned of the existence of the nearby offshore island from the
Nanai natives of the lower Amur. The Jesuits did not have a chance to visit the island, and the geographical information provided by the Nanai people and Manchus who had been to the island was insufficient to allow them to identify it as 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 form part of the mainland. Only with the 1787 expedition of
Jean-François de La Pérouse did the island began to resemble something of its true shape on European maps. Though unable to pass through its
northern "bottleneck" due to contrary winds, La Perouse charted most of the
Strait of Tartary, and islanders he encountered near today's
Nevelskoy Strait told him that the island was called "Tchoka" (or at least that is how he recorded the name in French), and "Tchoka" appears on some maps thereafter. In 1855, Russia and Japan signed the
Treaty of Shimoda, which declared that nationals of both countries could inhabit the island: Russians in the north, and Japanese in the south, without a clearly defined boundary between. Russia also agreed to dismantle its military base at Ootomari. Following the
Second Opium War, Russia forced China to sign the
Treaty of Aigun (1858) and the
Convention of Peking (1860), under which China lost to Russia all claims to territories north of
Heilongjiang (
Amur) and east of
Ussuri. In 1857, the Russians established a penal colony, or
katorga, on Sakhalin. The island remained under shared sovereignty until the signing of the 1875
Treaty of Saint Petersburg, in which Japan surrendered its claims in Sakhalin to Russia. In 1890, the author
Anton Chekhov visited the penal colony on Sakhalin. He spent three months there interviewing thousands of convicts and settlers for a census and published his memoir
Sakhalin Island () of his
journey.
Division along 50th parallel Japanese forces invaded and occupied Sakhalin in the closing stages of the
Russo-Japanese War. In accordance with the
Treaty of Portsmouth of 1905, the southern part of the island below the
50th parallel north reverted to Japan, while Russia retained the northern three-fifths. South Sakhalin was administered by Japan as
Karafuto Prefecture (), with the capital at
Toyohara (today's
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk). A large number of migrants were brought in from Korea. The northern, Russian, half of the island formed
Sakhalin Oblast, with the capital at
Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky. In response to the
United States opening of Japan by
Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853 and, later, the subsequent signing of the
Convention of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854,
Tsar Nicholas I, who was personally involved in the "Sakhalin issue", in April 1853 ordered the
Russian-American Company (RAC) to immediately occupy the Sakhalin Island and begin colonization by constructing two redoubts armed with cannons on the western and southern coasts of the island. On September 20, 1853, the RAC ship "
Emperor Nikolai I" () under the command of skipper
Martin Fyodorovich Klinkowström () and under the general guidance of Captain Nevelskoy arrived at Tomari-Aniva on
Aniva Bay, not far from the main Japanese settlement on the island, and put ashore men and materials to form a military outpost. At the oldest settlement on Sakhlin Island, Sakhalin Oblast had a
Czarist era penal colony named Due () on
Cape Douai which had the 1853 established Makaryevka () coal mine, which was supported by both the
Muravyovsky post (), now known as
Korsakov (), at Aniva Bay (), which was named after
Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky who had sponsored
the expedition commanded by
Gennady Nevelskoy that explored the coast of Sakhalin Island from 1849 to 1853, and the
Russian-American Company, and hosted its first prisoner beginning in 1876. On April 18, 1869,
Tsar Alexander II approved the "Regulations of the Committee on the Arrangement of Hard Labor" () which formed the legal basis for Sakhalin Island to be a penal colony. In 1920, during the
Siberian Intervention, Japan again
occupied the northern part of the island, returning it to the Soviet Union in 1925 after the
Treaty of Beijing was signed on January 20, 1925. However, Japan formed the state owned firm
North Sakhalin Oil () which extracted oil from the
OKHA Oil Field () near
Okha on North Sakhalin from 1926 to 1944.
Whaling Between 1848 and 1902,
American whaleships hunted
whales off Sakhalin. They cruised for
bowhead and
gray whales to the north and
right whales to the east and south. On June 7, 1855, the ship
Jefferson (396 tons), of
New London, was wrecked on
Cape Levenshtern, on the northeastern side of the island, during a fog. All hands were saved as well as 300 barrels of
whale oil.
Second World War In August 1945, after repudiating the
Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, the Soviet Union invaded southern Sakhalin, an action planned secretly at the
Yalta Conference. The Soviet attack started on August 11, 1945, a few days before the surrender of Japan. The Soviet 56th Rifle Corps, part of the
16th Army, consisting of the
79th Rifle Division, the 2nd Rifle Brigade, the 5th Rifle Brigade and the 214 Armored Brigade, attacked the Japanese
88th Infantry Division. Although the Soviet Red Army outnumbered the Japanese by three to one, they advanced only slowly due to strong Japanese resistance. It was not until the 113th Rifle Brigade and the 365th Independent Naval Infantry Rifle Battalion from Sovetskaya Gavan landed on Tōro, a seashore village of western Karafuto, on August 16 that the Soviets broke the Japanese defense line. Japanese resistance grew weaker after this landing. Actual fighting continued until August 21. From August 22 to August 23, most remaining Japanese units agreed to a ceasefire. The Soviets completed the conquest of Karafuto on August 25, 1945, by occupying the capital of
Toyohara. Of the approximately 400,000 people – mostly Japanese and Korean – who lived on South Sakhalin in 1944, about 100,000 were
evacuated to Japan during the last days of the war. The remaining 300,000 stayed behind, some for several more years. While the vast majority of Sakhalin Japanese and Koreans were gradually repatriated between 1946 and 1950, tens of thousands of
Sakhalin Koreans (and a number of their Japanese spouses) remained in the Soviet Union. No final peace treaty has been signed and the status of four neighboring islands remains
disputed. Japan renounced its claims of sovereignty over southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the
Treaty of San Francisco (1951), but maintains that the four offshore islands of
Hokkaido currently administered by Russia were not subject to this renunciation. Japan granted mutual exchange visas for Japanese and Ainu families divided by the change in status. Recently, economic and political cooperation has gradually improved between the two nations despite disagreements.
Recent history , 2009 On 1 September 1983,
Korean Air Flight 007, a South Korean civilian airliner, flew over Sakhalin and was shot down by the Soviet Union, just west of Sakhalin Island, near the smaller
Moneron Island. The Soviet Union claimed it was a spy plane; however, commanders on the ground realized it was a commercial aircraft. All 269 passengers and crew died, including a U.S. Congressman,
Larry McDonald. On 27 May 1995, the 7.0
Neftegorsk earthquake shook the former Russian settlement of
Neftegorsk with a maximum
Mercalli intensity of IX (
Violent). Total damage was $64.1–300 million, with 1,989 deaths and 750 injured. The settlement was not rebuilt. ==Geography==