Japan Dutch East India Company
Which country did Urup belong to from May 1875 to 1945?
Urup Urup ( ; , ) is an uninhabited volcanic island in the Kuril Islands chain in the south of the Sea of Okhotsk , northwest Pacific Ocean . Its name is derived from the Ainu language word for salmon trout . It was formerly known as Companys Land . Geography and climate . Urup has a roughly rectangular shape , measuring along its long axis and approximately along its narrow axis . It is the fourth largest of the Kuril Islands , with an area of . The highest point is Gora Ivao at . The strait between Urup and Iturup is known as the Vries Strait , after Dutch explorer Maarten Gerritsz Vries , the first recorded European to explore the area . The strait between Urup and Simushir is known as Bussol Strait , after the French word for compass , which was the name of one of La Pérouses vessels . This French mariner explored the area of the Kuril Islands in 1787 . Urup consists of four major groups of active or dormant stratovolcanos : - Kolokol Group ( ; ) , with a height of has erupted as recently as 1973 . - Rudakov ( ; ) , with a height of has a , funnel-like crater containing a lake - Tri Sestry ( ; ) , with a height of has flanks cut by deep ravines and has numerous hot springs . - Ivao Group ( ; ) , with a height of is the highest point on the island . The southeast-most cone bisects a glacial valley , forming a lake . Despite its temperate latitude , the cold Oyashio Current and powerful Aleutian Low combine to give Urup a subarctic climate ( Köppen Dfc ) , that is close to a polar climate ( Koppen ET ) with mild , foggy summers and cold , snowy winters . In reality the climate resembles the subpolar oceanic climate of the Aleutian Islands much more than the hypercontinental climate of Siberia proper or Manchuria , but the February mean of is well below the limit of oceanic climates . Urup , like all the Kuril islands , experiences extremely strong seasonal lag , with the highest temperatures in August and September , the lowest in February and temperatures typically in fact warmer at the autumn equinox than at the summer solstice . Fauna . In the spring and summer crested auklet , tufted puffin , and pigeon guillemot nest on the island ; there is also a colony of black-legged kittiwake . History . Before the 20th century . Urup was originally inhabited by the Ainu , the native peoples of the Kurils , Sakhalin and Hokkaidō . The first recorded visit by Europeans was in 1643 , when a ship of the Dutch East India Company commanded by Maarten Gerritsz Vries landed , probably seeking furs . It appears on an official map showing the territories of Matsumae Domain , a feudal domain of Edo period Japan dated 1644 , and these holdings were officially confirmed by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1715 . Administration of the island came under the Matsumae domain’s regional office location on Kunashir from 1756 . Russian fur traders appeared in the late 18th century , hunting sea otter and seizing foreign ships in the area . There were clashes between the Russians and the Ainu in 1772 , and the Russians left for a time , but soon returned . G.F . Muller’s Voyages & Découvertes faites par les Russes ( Amsterdam , 1766 ) contained a list and description of the Kuril Islands , including Urup whose people were said to trade with the Japanese but were not under their control . A small Russian presence was established on Urup by the fur trader Ivan Chernyi in 1768 , acting on instructions from the governor of Siberia . During the 1770s it was the base for attempts to establish trade with the Japanese on Yezo ( Hokkaido ) which came to an end when it was destroyed by a tsunami in June 1780 . During the decade following 1795 , a party of 40 Russian men and women under Zvezdochetov established on Urup a colony baptized Slavorossiia . In 1801 , the Japanese government officially claimed control of the island , incorporating it into Ezo Province ( now Hokkaidō Prefecture ) . This led to a series of clashes with Imperial Russia over Urup and the other Kurils , and sovereignty initially passed to Russia under the terms of the Treaty of Shimoda in 1855 . The same year , in an effort to find the Russian fleet in the Pacific Ocean during the Crimean War , a French-British naval force reached the port of Hakodate ( open to British ships as a result of the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty of 1854 ) , and sailing further north , landed on Urup , taking official possession of the island as lIsle de lAlliance and nominating a local Aleut inhabitant as provisional governor . The Treaty of Paris restituted the island to Russian control . Three whaleships have been wrecked near or on the island : one in 1853 and two in 1855 . On the night of 27–28 April 1853 , the ship Susan ( 349 tons ) , of Nantucket , was stove by ice and sank in Bussol Strait while attempting to enter the Sea of Okhotsk . Two men were lost , one drowning and the other perishing on the ice . The remaining twenty-five crew members crowded into two whaleboats and reached Urup on the afternoon of 29 April . Here they spent eight days before being rescued by the barque Black Warrior , of New London . On 14 May 1855 , the ships King Fisher ( 425 tons ) , and Enterprise ( 291 tons ) , both of New Bedford , were wrecked on a reef on the northeast end of the island while attempting to pass through Bussol Strait into the Sea of Okhotsk . All hands were saved . Under the Treaty of Saint Petersburg , sovereignty passed to the Empire of Japan along with the rest of the Kuril islands . The island was formerly administered as part of Uruppu District of Nemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaidō . The remaining local ( mainly Aleut ) inhabitants were transferred to Kamchatka , according to their will , and replaced by Japanese colonists . 20th and 21st century . During World War II , all civilian inhabitants of the island were relocated to the Japanese home islands , and towards the end of the war , the Imperial Japanese Army stationed approximately 6,000 troops on Uruppu , including the IJA 129th Independent Mixed Brigade , 5th Independent Tank Company , 23rd Independent AA Company , 80th Airfield Battalion and 6th Disembarkation Unit . During the Invasion of the Kuril Islands by the Soviet Union after the end of World War II , Japanese forces on Uruppu surrendered without resistance . In 1952 , upon signing the Treaty of San Francisco , Japan renounced its claim to the island . Soviet Border Troops occupied the former Japanese military facilities . As early as the 1950s , a P-14 radar Tall King VHF air defense radar existed on the far northeastern tip of Urup Island . The troops were withdrawn upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 , the co-located airfield was turned into a bombing range . The island is now uninhabited and is administered as part of the Sakhalin Oblast of the Russian Federation .