; ja, 色丹島 , location =

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, coordinates = , archipelago =

Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...

, total_islands = 1 , major_islands = , area_km2 = 225 , length = , width = , coastline = , highest_mount = Mount Tomari , elevation_m = 412 , country_claim = , country_claim_divisions_title_1 =

Prefecture A prefecture (from the Latin ''Praefectura'') is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain international ...

, country_claim_divisions_1 =

Hokkaido is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

, country_claim_divisions_title_2 =

Subprefecture A subprefecture is an administrative division of a country that is below prefecture or province. Albania There are twelve Counties of Albania, Albanian counties or prefectures, each of which is divided into several Districts of Albania, district ...

, country_claim_divisions_2 =

Nemuro Nemuro may refer to: * Nemuro Subprefecture, Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan ** Nemuro, Hokkaido, a city ** Nemuro Peninsula ** Nemuro Strait ** Nemuro Bay * Nemuro Province was an old province in Japan in what is today Nemuro Subprefecture, Hokkai ...

, country = , country_admin_divisions_title_1 =

Federal subject The federal subjects of Russia, also referred to as the subjects of the Russian Federation (russian: субъекты Российской Федерации, subyekty Rossiyskoy Federatsii) or simply as the subjects of the federation (russian ...

, country_admin_divisions_1 =

Sakhalin Oblast Sakhalin Oblast ( rus, Сахали́нская о́бласть, r=Sakhalínskaya óblast', p=səxɐˈlʲinskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast) comprising the island of Sakhalin and the K ...

, country_admin_divisions_title_2 =

District A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

, country_admin_divisions_2 = Yuzhno-Kurilsky , population = 2,100 , population_as_of = , density = , ethnic_groups = , additional_info = Shikotan (

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: Шикотан; ja, 色丹, Shikotan; ain, シコタン or シコタヌ, Sikotan), also known as Shpanberg (after

Martin Spangberg Martin Spangberg (?–1761), or Martyn Petrovich Shpanberg (Мартын Петрович Шпанберг), was a Danish naval lieutenant in Russian service who took part with his compatriot Vitus Bering in both Kamchatka expeditions as second in ...

), is an island in the

Kurils The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...

administered by the

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

as part of

Yuzhno-Kurilsky District Yuzhno-Kurilsky District (russian: Ю́жно-Кури́льский райо́н) is an administrative district ( raion) of Sakhalin Oblast, Russia; one of the seventeen in the oblast.Law #25-ZO Municipally, it is incorporated as Yuzhno-Kuril ...

. It is

claimed "Claimed" is the eleventh episode of the The Walking Dead (season 4), fourth season of the Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, post-apocalyptic Horror fiction, horror television series ''The Walking Dead (TV series), The Walking Dead'', wh ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

as the nominal , part of

Nemuro Subprefecture is a subprefecture of Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. Japan claims the southern parts of the disputed Kuril Islands (known as the Northern Territories in Japan) as part of this subprefecture. As of March 2009, the subprefecture has an estimated p ...

Hokkaido Prefecture is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

. The island's primary economic activities are

fisheries Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life; or more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a. fishing ground). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both ...

and

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

, with the principal marine products being

cod Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...

, and

kelp Kelps are large brown algae seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Despite its appearance, kelp is not a plant - it is a heterokont, a completely unrelated group of organisms. Kelp grows in "underwat ...

. The name ''Shikotan'' derives from the

Ainu language Ainu (, ), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu, is a language spoken by a few elderly members of the Ainu people on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, itself considered a language family isolate ...

and means "real town" (Ainu reflexive or embellishing prefix ''si-'' + Ainu ''kotan'' "inhabited place, settlement, village, town").

Geography

The total land

area Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape A shape or figure is a graphics, graphical representation of an obje ...

of Shikotan is 225 km². The island is hilly, averaging 300 metres in elevation. The shores of the island are very indented and covered with oceanic

meadow A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artifi ...

s. The highest

altitude Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...

is 412 m. The island is formed by the

volcanic rock Volcanic rock (often shortened to volcanics in scientific contexts) is a rock formed from lava erupted from a volcano. In other words, it differs from other igneous rock by being of volcanic origin. Like all rock types, the concept of volcanic r ...

and

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

of the Upper

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

and

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

periods. There are two extinct volcanoes on Shikotan: Mount Tomari and Mount Notoro. Shikotan's

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic character ...

consists mostly of Sakhalin fir,

larch Larches are deciduous conifers in the genus ''Larix'', of the family Pinaceae (subfamily Laricoideae). Growing from tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains furt ...

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

trees,

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

underbrush In forestry and ecology, understory (American English), or understorey (Commonwealth English), also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the forest canopy without penetrating it to any great extent, but abov ...

, and

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arcti ...

brushwood. There are two

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

s: Malokurilskoye, formerly ; and

Krabozavodskoye Krabozavodskoye (russian: Крабозаводское), also known as Anama ( ja, 穴澗; Anama), is a village ('' selo'') in Yuzhno-Kurilsky District of Sakhalin Oblast, Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontine ...

, formerly

History

Russia recognised Japanese sovereignty over the island in the 19th century. In 1885, Hanasaki District, to which the island belongs, was split off of

Nemuro Province was an old province in Japan in what is today Nemuro Subprefecture, Hokkaidō. It was created during the Meiji Era. History After 1869, the northern Japanese island was known as Hokkaido; and regional administrative subdivisions were identifie ...

and incorporated into Chishima Province. In September 1945, during the final days of World War II, the island, which had a population of 1,038 at the time, was invaded by 600 Soviet troops. It is one of the islands (along with the

Habomai ; ja, 歯舞群島, Habomai guntō , location = Pacific Ocean , coordinates = , archipelago = Kuril Islands , total_islands = 10 + several rocks , major_islands = , area_km2 = 100 , length = , ...

Islands) which the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

agreed in 1956 to transfer to Japan in the event of a peace treaty between the two countries (such a peace treaty has never been concluded). Between the late-1950s and to the 1960s, the Soviet Union fortified the island with old tanks (mainly IS-2 and IS-3

heavy tank Heavy tank is a term used to define a class of tanks produced from World War I through the end of the Cold War. These tanks generally sacrificed mobility and maneuverability for better armour protection and equal or greater firepower than tanks ...

s) repurposed as coastal-defence artillery against a possible seaborne invasion, by digging them into the ground and employing them as fixed gun emplacements."Texts of Soviet–Japanese Statements; Peace Declaration Trade Protocol"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', page 2, October 20, 1956.

Moscow, October 19. (UP) – Following are the texts of a Soviet–Japanese peace declaration and of a trade protocol between the two countries, signed here today, in unofficial translation from the Russian

...The U.S.S.R. and Japan have agreed to continue, after the establishment of normal diplomatic relations between them, negotiations for the conclusion of a peace treaty. Hereby, the U.S.S.R., in response to the desires of Japan and taking into consideration the interest of the Japanese state, agrees to hand over to Japan the Habomai and the Shikotan Islands, provided that the actual changing over to Japan of these islands will be carried out after the conclusion of a peace treaty...

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

and subsequent

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...

caused major damage on the island's coastline on October 4, 1994.

In popular culture

The 2014 anime film ''

Giovanni's Island is a 2014 Japanese animated historical drama film directed by Mizuho Nishikubo and produced by Production I.G and co-produced and presented by the Japan Association of Music Enterprises. The film was released on February 22, 2014, in Japan and ...

'' is a fictionalized account of the fate of Japanese civilians living on Shikotan at the time of the 1945 Soviet occupation.

Gallery

File:Shikotan Relief Map, SRTM-1.jpg, Relief Map File:Остров Шикотан.jpg, Shikotan Island, 1990. File:Шикотан3.jpg, Shikotan, 1980. File:Шикотан4.jpg, Lighthouse, 1980. File:Шикотан5.jpg, Landscape, 1980. File:Shikotan_Shrine.JPG, Pre-WW2 Shikotan Shrine. Whale bones were used for a

Torii A is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred. The presence of a ''torii'' at the entrance is usually the simplest ...

References

External links