Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands together form an oblast (province) of the Russian Federation. The Kurils are a chain of 56 volcanic islands 1300 km (800 mi) long, stretching from the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido to the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula and separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the open Pacific Ocean.
The history of the Kurils is complex, reflecting a lengthy struggle between Russia and Japan to control these northern territories. In 1855, the two nations agreed in the Treaty of Shimoda that the border between them should fall between the islands of Iturop and Urop. In 1875, in the Treaty of St. Petersburg, Russia gave Japan control of all of the Kurils in return for Russian control of Sakhalin.
During World War II, in the Yalta Agreement of 1943, the Allied Powers agreed that following the war Japan should cede all of the Kurils to the Soviet Union. In the last days of the war, in 1945, Soviet troops occupied the Kurils. In the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco, a defeated Japan renounced its claims to Sakhalin and the Kurils. However, an independent Japan subsequently declared that this denunciation does not apply to the southern Kurils that were recognized as Japanese back in 1855. The Soviet Union offered to return the southernmost Kurils, Shikotan and the Habomai Islands, if Japan would drop its claims to the rest of the chain, but Japan refused. This dispute continues.
Curly braces {} enclose the former Japanese names of some of the lighthouses.
ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume F of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112.
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