Karafuto Prefecture
| Karafuto 樺太 |
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| External territory, later prefecture, of the Empire of Japan | ||||||
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 Light green: Other constituents of Imperial Japan |
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| Capital | Toyohara | |||||
| History | ||||||
| • | Initial colonization | 1905 (−1907) | ||||
| • | Becomes prefecture | 1907 | ||||
| • | Upgraded to "inner land" | 1943 | ||||
| • | Autonomy | December 1, 1945 | ||||
| • | Soviet occupation | August 25, 1945 | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| • | December 1941 | 406,557 | ||||
| Today part of |
 Russia
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Karafuto Prefecture (樺太庁 Karafuto-chō?), commonly called South Sakhalin, was the Japanese administrative division corresponding to Japanese territory on southern Sakhalin island from 1905 to 1945.
Through the Treaty of Portsmouth, the portion of the island south of 50°N became a colony of Japan in 1905. In 1907 the prefecture of Karafuto was established, with its capital at Ōtomari (大泊, now Korsakov) in 1905 and later Toyohara (豊原, now Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk) in 1907. In 1945, with the defeat of Japan in World War II, Karafuto was occupied by Soviet troops and its Japanese administration ceased to function. Karafuto Prefecture was formally abolished as a legal entity on June 1, 1949. Since 1951, the southern part of Sakhalin has been a part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Soviet Union and Russia.
The Japanese name Karafuto (樺太?) comes from Ainu kamuy kar put ya mosir (カムイ・カラ・プト・ヤ・モシリ), which means "the island a god has created on the estuary (of Amur River)". It was formerly known as Kita Ezo (北蝦夷?), meaning Northern Ezo (Ezo is the former name for Hokkaido). When Japanese administered the prefecture, Karafuto usually meant Southern Sakhalin only. For convenience, the northern part of the island was sometimes called Sagaren (薩哈嗹?).
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