Etorofu is an island in the Kuril Archipelago separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. Etorofu is the largest and northernmost of the southern Kurils. It is located between Kunashiri 19 km (12 mi) to its southwest and Urup 37 km (23 mi) to its northeast. The Vries Strait between Etorofu and Urup forms the Miyabe Line dividing the predominant plants of the Kurils.
The native inhabitants of the islands since at least the 14th century were the Ainu. The island was formally claimed as Japanese territory in 1855. Near the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Soviet Union occupied the southern Kurils and forceably removed its Japanese residents. Japan continues to claim the islands and considers the northern edge of the island to be its own northernmost point.
Etorofu names come from the native Ainu Etuworop-sir (エツ゚ヲロㇷ゚シㇼ), meaning “island with many capes”.
Geography
Etorofu consists of volcanic massifs and mountain ridges. A series of a dozen calc-alkaline volcanoes running NE to SW form the backbone of the island, the highest being Stokap (1,634 m) in the central part of Etorofu. The shores of the island are high and abrupt. The vegetation mostly consists of spruce, larch, pine, fir, and mixed deciduous forests with alder, lianas and Kuril bamboo underbrush. The mountains are covered with birch and Siberian Dwarf Pine scrub, herbaceous flowers (including Fragaria iturupensis, the Iturup strawberry) or bare rocks.
The island also contains some high waterfalls.
Rheniite, a rhenium sulfide mineral (ReS2), was discovered in active hot fumaroles on an island volcano and first described in 2004.
History
Prehistory
The native inhabitants of all the Kuril islands are the Ainu. They have lived there since at least the 14th century.
Edo period
The Japanese are first recorded reaching Etorofu in 1661, when Shichirobei and his company drifted there by accident. Following Bering and Spanberg’s voyages under the Russian flag, a settlement was established in the late 18th century, prompting the Japanese to establish a garrison around 1800 at the site of present-day Kurilsk. Japanese rule over Etorofu was formally recognized in the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda.
Showa period
On 26 November 1941, a Japanese carrier fleet left Hitokappu Bay (now called Kasatka Bay), on the eastern shore of Etorofu, and sailed for an attack on the American base of Pearl Harbor.
Shana Village was located on Etorofu in the Showa era, before 1945. It was the administrative capital of the Kuril islands. There was a village hospital, an Etorofu Fisheries factory, a radio tower of the post office with a radio receiving antenna. The receiver was battery-powered.
Post-World War II
In 1945 it was occupied by the Soviet Union after Japan’s defeat in World War II. The Japanese inhabitants were expelled to mainland Japan. In 1956 the two countries agreed to restore diplomatic relations, but a peace treaty, as of 2023, has not been concluded due to the disputed status of Etorofu and some other nearby islands.
A Soviet Anti-Air Defense (PVO) airfield, Burevestnik, is located on the island and was until 1993 home for a number of Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 fighter jets. In 1968, Seaboard World Airlines Flight 253A was intercepted over the Kurils and forced to land at Burevestnik with 214 American troops bound for Vietnam. An older airfield, Vetrovoe, exists on the eastern part of the island and may have been used primarily by Japanese forces during World War II.
Contemporary period
A new international airport, Iturup Airport, was opened in 2014, 7 kilometres (4+1⁄2 miles) east of Kurilsk. It was the first airport built from scratch in Russia’s post-Soviet history. It has a 2.3-kilometre-long (7,500 ft), 42-metre-wide (138 ft) runway and can receive Antonov An-74-200 aircraft. It also has a military use. The Burevestnik military airfield 60 km (37 mi) to the south, in the past received civilian aircraft as well, but was often closed because of fog. Burevestnik is now a reserve airfield for the new airport. On February 2, 2018, PBS NewsHour reported that Russia announced it is sending fighter planes to Etorofu. Su-35 aircraft landed on a reserve airfield on the island in March 2018 and Su-35s were then deployed to Iturup airport on a trial basis in August 2018.
Now administratively the island belongs to the Sakhalin Oblast of the Russian Federation. Japan claims Etorofu as part of Nemuro Subprefecture.