Sakhalin is a large elongated Island in the North Pacific, lying between 45° 50' and 54° 24' N, in the Russian Far East. It is a part of the Russian Federation and is the biggest island in the Russian far east. The capital of Sakhalin is Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
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 Ainu name, Karafuto (樺太) or Krafto, was restored to the island by the Japanese during their possession of its southern part (1905-1945).
The indigenous people of Sakhalin are the Xianbei and Xiazhe tribes, who had a way of life based on fishing. The Chinese in the Ming Dynasty knew the island as Kuyi (Chinese: 苦夷; Pinyin: Kǔyí), and later as Kuye (Chinese: 庫頁; Pinyin: Kùyè). According to the Book of Shengmu (Chinese: 聖武記; Pinyin: Shèngwǔjì), the Ming sent 400 troops to Sakhalin in 1616, but later withdrew as it was considered there was no threat to Chinese control of the island. A Ming boundary stone still exists on the island.
The Qing Empire also claimed sovereignty over the island and Sakhalin was under formal Chinese rule from the Jin Dynasty onwards. However, as the Chinese governments did not have a military presence on the island, people from both Japan and Russia attempted to colonise the island. The Japanese settlement of Ootomari was established in 1679. Cartographers of the Matsumae clan created a map of the island and called it "Kita-Ezo" (Northern Ezo, Ezo is the old name of Hokkaido). The 1686 Nerchinsk Treaty reaffirmed Sakhalin as Chinese territory. Nevertheless Russia started occupying the island, with an army made up of convicts, from the 18th century onwards.
Sakhalin became known to Europeans from the travels of Ivan Moskvitin and Martin Gerritz de Vries in the 17th century, and still better from those of Jean-François de La Pérouse (1787) and Ivan Krusenstern (1805). Both, however, regarded it as a peninsula, and were unaware of the existence of the Mamiya Strait or Strait of Tartary, which was discovered in 1809 by Mamiya Rinzo.
Japan unilaterally proclaimed sovereignty over the whole island in 1845. However, the Russian navigator Gennady Nevelskoy in 1849 definitively recorded the existence and navigability of this strait and - in defiance of Qing claim - Russian settlers established coal mines, administration facilities, schools, prisons, churches on the island. The Xiazhes were killed or forced to move to the Asian mainland.
In 1855, Russia and Japan signed the Treaty of Shimoda, which declared that both nationals could inhabit the island: Russians in the north, and Japanese in the south, without a clear boundary between. Russia also agreed to dismantle its military base at Ootomari. Following the Opium War, Russia forced the Qing to sign the unequal Treaty of Aigun and Convention of Peking, under which China lost all territories north of Heilongjiang (Amur) and east of Ussuri, including Sakhalin, to 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, when they ceded it to Russia in exchange for the Kuril islands. After the Russo-Japanese War, Russia and Japan signed the Treaty of Portsmouth of 1905, which resulted in the southern part of the island below 50° N reverting to Japan; the Russians retained the other three-fifths of the area. South Sakhalin was administrated by Japan as Karafuto-chō (樺太庁), with the capital Toyohara, today's Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
In August 1945, the Soviet Union took over the control of Sakhalin. The Soviet attack on South Sakhalin started on August 11 1945, about a month before the Surrender of Japan. The 56th Rifle Corps consisting of the 79th Rifle Division, the 2nd Rifle Brigade, the 5th Rifle Brigade and the 214 Armored Brigade attacked the Japanese 88th Division. Although the Red Army outnumbered the Japanese by three times, they couldn't advance due to strong Japanese resistance. It was not until the 113th Rifle Brigade and the 365th Independent Naval Infantry Rifle Battalion from Sovietskaya Gavan (Советская Гавань) landed on Tōrō (塔路), a seashore village of western Sakhalin on August 16 that the Soviets broke the Japanese defense line. Japanese resistance grew weaker after this landing. Actual fightings continued until August 21 and these fightings were petty. From August 22 to August 23, most of the remaining Japanese units announced truce. The Soviets completed the conquest of Sakhalin on August 25 1945 by occupying the capital of Sakhalin, Toyohara. Japanese sources claim that 20.000 civilians were killed during the invasion.
Since January 2, 1947, the Sakhalin Region, in its present form, was officially defined and integrated as a part of the Russian Federation.
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, Sakhalin's attribution is not determined yet, and it is marked as No Man's Land on Japanese maps. As of 2005, The issue remains a major strain on Japanese-Russian relations. Even now, no official peace treaty has been signed between the two nations.
Korean Air flight 007, a South Korean Civilian Airliner, flew over Sakhalin and was shot down, just west of the island, by the Soviet Union on 1 September 1983, killing all 269 passengers and crew.
On May 28 1995, an Earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale occurred, killing 2,000 people of the Town of Neftegorsk.
Its Orography and geological structure are imperfectly known. Nearly two-thirds of Sakhalin is mountainous. 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 the swampy Northern-Sakhalin plain occupies 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 connection 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.
The capital, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, a city of about 200,000, has a large Korean minority many who were forcibly brought by the Japanese during World War II to work in the coal mines. Most of the population lives in the southern half of the island, centered mainly around Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and two ports, Kholmsk and Korsakov (population 50,000 each).
The 400,000 Japanese inhabitants of Sakhalin 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.
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.
About 30% of all inland transportation volume is realized through railways. Sakhalin has railway lines stretching from Nogliki in the north to Korsakov in the south. There is also a departmental narrow-gauge line at Nogliki-Okha, extending 228 km. With the existence of a ferry serving Vanino-Kholmsk, Sakhalin has railway connection with the railway network of the rest of Russia.
Sakhalin is connected by regular flights to Moscow, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and other cities of the Russian Federation. The airport of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk has regularly scheduled international flights to Hakodate, Japan and Seoul and Busan, Korea. There are also charter flights to the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Niigata, and Sapporo and the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Dalian, and Harbin.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and economic liberalization, Sakhalin has experienced an Oil boom with extensive petroleum exploration and mining by most large oil multinationals. The oil and natural gas reserves contain an estimated 14 Billion barrels (2.2 km³) of oil and 96 Trillion cubic feet (2,700 km³) of gas.
In 1996, two large consortiums signed contracts to explore for oil and gas off the northeast coast of the island, Sakhalin-I and Sakhalin-II. The two consortium’s are estimated to spend a combined $21 Billion U.S. dollars on the two projects. This will include an estimated $1 billion (US) to upgrade the islands infrastructure: roads, bridges, waste management sites, airports, railways, communications systems, and ports. In addition, Sakhalin-III-through-VI are in various early stages of development.
The Sakhalin-I project, managed by Exxon Neftgas Limited (ENL), completed a production-sharing agreement (PSA) between the Sakhalin-I consortium, the Russian Federation, and the Sakhalin government. Russia is in the process of building a 136 mile (219 km) pipeline across the Tatar Strait from Sakhalin Island to De-Kastri on the Russian mainland. From De-Kastri it will be loaded onto tankers for transport to East Asian markets, namely Japan, South Korea, and China.
The second consortium, Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd. (Sakhalin Energy) is managing the Sakhalin-II project. They completed the first ever production-sharing agreement (PSA) with the Russian Federation. Sakhalin Energy will build two 800 km pipelines running from the northeast of the island to Prigorodnoye (Prigorodnoe) on Aniva Bay at the southern end. The consortium will also build, at Prigorodnoye, the first ever liquid natural gas (LNG) plant to be built in Russia. The oil and gas is also bound for East Asian markets. Sakhalin-II has come under fire from environmental groups, namely Sakhalin Environment Watch, for dumping dredging in Aniva Bay. The groups are also worried about the offshore pipelines interfering with the migration of whales off the island.
In 2000, the oil and gas industry accounted for 57.5% of Sakhalin's industrial output. By 2006, it is expected to account for 80% of the island's industrial output. Sakhalin's economy is growing rapidly thanks to its oil and gas industry. The island has recently become the second largest recipient of foreign investment in Russia after Moscow. Unemployment in 2002 was only 2%.
The idea of building a fixed link between Sakhalin and the Russian mainland was first mooted in the 1930s. In the 1940s, an abortive attempt was made to link the island via a 10 km long undersea Tunnel. The workers supposedly made it almost to the half-way point before the project was abandoned under Nikita Khrushchev. In 2000, the Russian government revived the idea, adding a suggestion that a 40 km long bridge could be constructed between Sakhalin and the Japanese island of Hokkaido, providing Japan with a direct connection to the Euro-Asian railway network. It was claimed that construction work could begin as early as 2001. The idea was received skeptically by the Japanese government and appears to have been shelved, probably permanently, after the cost was estimated at as much as US$50 billion.