Shumushu

Shumshu

A Landsat 7 image of Shumshu Island. The northern tip of Paramushir Island is at left. The First Kuril Strait lies across the upper portion of the image.
Geography
Location	Pacific Ocean
Coordinates	50°44′N 156°19′E / 50.733°N 156.317°E / 50.733; 156.317
Archipelago	Kuril Island
Area	388 km2 (150 sq mi)
Length	28 km (17.4 mi)
Width	15 km (9.3 mi)
Highest elevation	171 m (561 ft)
Administration
Russia
Oblast	Sakhalin Oblast
District	Severo-Kurilsky
Demographics
Population	± 100 (seasonal)

Shumshu (Russian: Шумшу, Shumushu; Japanese: 占守島 Shumushu-tō), is the second-northernmost island of the Kuril Islands chain, which divides the Sea of Okhotsk from the northwest Pacific Ocean. The name of the island is derived from the Ainu language, meaning “good island.” It is separated from Paramushir by the very narrow Second Kuril Strait in the northeast 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi), and its northern tip is 11 kilometres (6.8 mi), from Cape Lopatka at the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The island has a seasonal population of around 100 inhabitants.

Shumshu is the least elevated in the entire Kuril group with a height of 189 metres (620 feet). The terrain is low-lying and covered with numerous lakes and marshland. Is roughly oval, and has an area of 388 square kilometres (150 square miles).

Shumshu was inhabited by the Ainu, who subsisted off of the abundant fish, marine mammals and birdlife in the area, at the time of European contact. The island appears on an official map showing the territories of Matsumae Domain, a feudal domain of Edo period Japan dated 1644. Due to its proximity to the Kamchatka Peninsula, Shumshu became the first of the Kurils to be reached by Cossacks from the peninsula in the first years of the 18th century. Russian fur traders are known to have visited the island in 1711 and 1713, and it was from this base that Russian fur hunters and traders gradually expanded into other islands of the chain and Sakhalin. Although the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan officially confirmed the Matsumae Domain’s claims to the island, the island remained outside of de facto Japanese control. Also claimed by the Empire of Russia, sovereignty over the island was confirmed to be under Russia under the terms of the Treaty of Shimoda in 1855. In 1875, sovereignty over the Kuril Islands, including Shumshu, was transferred to the Empire of Japan per the Treaty of Saint Petersburg. A number of Japanese colonizing expeditions followed, establishing the settlement of Kataoka (on the site of the Ainu settlement of Mairuppo) as the commercial center of Shumshu. As the island closest to Russia, it became an important Japanese military outpost, as well as a center for the commercial fishing industry. The island was administered as part of the Shumushu District of Nemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaidō. In 1910, a cannery was established, and the island’s civilian population exceeded 2,000 by the early 1940s.