Shasukotan

Shasukotan, or Shiashkotan, lies near the middle of the Kuril island chain. Its two mountainous volcanic ends are joined by a narrow sandy isthmus. The island's name comes from an Ainu expression meaning “kelp village.” Ainu inhabitants lived by hunting and fishing when Europeans first encountered them.

A Japanese official map of 1644 included the island among territories associated with the Matsumae domain, and the Tokugawa shogunate confirmed those holdings in 1715. Russian expansion brought a competing claim from the north. Such maps and claims record the ambitions of outside governments, while the island remained part of an inhabited Ainu world.