Kuril Islands dispute

Uncommon card · No. 79324

Russia and Japan have a territorial dispute over the four southernmost Kuril Islands, known in Russia as the Southern Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories. They are, from largest to smallest: Iturup/Etorofu, Kunashir/Kunashiri, Shikotan, and the Habomai Islands. The Kuril Islands are a chain of islands that stretch between the Japanese island of Hokkaido at their southern end and the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula at their northern end. The islands separate the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. The four disputed islands, like other islands in the Kuril chain which are not in dispute, were unilaterally annexed by the Soviet Union following the Invasion of the Kuril Islands at the end of World War II. The disputed islands are under Russian administration as the South Kuril District and part of the Kuril District of the Sakhalin Oblast (Сахалинская область, Sakhalinskaya oblast). They are claimed by Japan, which refers to them as its Northern Territories or Southern Chishima,...

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