Nemuro Subprefecture
Paramushir was inhabited by the Ainu 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. Russian fur traders are known to have visited the island in 1711 and 1713, and Russian Orthodox missionaries established a church in 1747 to convert the local inhabitants. Subsequently, claimed by the Empire of Russia, sovereignty over the island was initially confirmed to be under Imperial Russia under the terms of the Treaty of Shimoda in 1855, but was transferred to the Empire of Japan per the Treaty of Saint Petersburg along with the rest of the Kuril Islands. The Japanese established a settlement, Kashiwabara, on the site of the largest Ainu village, which became the major port on the island, and a center for the commercial fishing industry. The island was administered as part of Shimushu District of Nemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaidō.