Karafuto Prefecture
Esutoru (blue area)
Shikuka (brown area)
Maoka (green area)
Toyohara (red areas)
The prefecture of Karafuto ( Japanese 樺 太 庁 , Karafuto-chō ) was an area belonging to the Japanese Empire from 1905 to 1945 , which included the southern part of Sakhalin Island south of 50 ° north latitude , and between 1920 and 1925 the entire island.
history
The first confirmed presence of Japanese on the island of Karafuto (Sakhalin) is dated to the Edo period . Karafuto, then called Kita-Ezo (North Ezo), is counted in the 17th century to belong to the Matsumae clan who ruled Hokkaido (Ezo) . A permanent land grab, however, did not take place. Only in 1809, after it became clear that Sakhalin was an island, did Japan claim all of Sakhalin for itself.
In the 1850s, the Russian Empire began to build settlements on the island and exploit the local coal deposits. In the Treaty of Shimoda between Russia and Japan, the island was declared a common territory. In 1875 Japan and Russia signed the Saint Petersburg Treaty . The treaty included that the entire island of Sakhalin should belong to Russia and the entire Kuril archipelago to Japan.
After the Russo-Japanese War , the southern part of Sakhalin became a Japanese possession through the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905 and was initially administered as a Japanese outer area . In 1943 it became an administrative part of Japan as Karafuto Prefecture .
The capital was initially Ōdomari (today Korsakow ), from 1907 Toyohara (today Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk ).
After the defeat of Japan in World War II in 1945, the time of the Japanese administration of Karafuto ended. In 1951, Japan gave up its claims to Karafuto with the San Francisco Peace Treaty . Since then, the southern part of Sakhalin has been part of Russia (or the Soviet Union ). Regardless of the treaty, it was part of Japan and some Japanese parties still officially claim it as part of Japan, resulting in political tensions with Russia. On some Japanese maps, Sakhalin is shown as a no man's land .
population
Population development
| year | Residents |
|---|---|
| 1906 | 12,361 |
| 1921 | > 100,000 |
| 1926 | > 200,000 |
| 1934 | > 300,000 |
| 1941 | 406,557 |