island (with Cape Patience), while Cape Aniva discovered by de Vries and the "Black Cape" (Cape Crillon) were thought to be part of the mainland.
It was not until the expedition of Jean-Fran�ois de La P�rouse (1787), who charted most of the Strait of Tartary, but was not able to pass through its northern "bottleneck" due to contrary winds, that the island on European maps assumed a form similar to what is familiar to modern readers. A few islanders La Perouse met near what is today called the Strait of Nevelskoy told him that the island is called "Tchoka" (or at least that is how he recorded the name in French), and it was used on some maps thereafter.
The Russian explorer Adam Johann von Krusenstern visited Sakhalin in 1805, but regarded it as a peninsula.
Alarmed by the visits of European powers, Japan proclaimed its sovereignty over the whole island in 1807. The Japanese say that it was Mamiya Rinz? who really discovered the Strait of Tartary in 1809.
Russo-Japanese rivalry
Settler's way of life. Near church at holiday. 1903
On the basis of its being an extension of Hokkaid?, geographically and culturally, Japan again proclaimed sovereignty over the whole island in 1845, as well as the Kuril Islands, as there were competing claims from Russia. However, the Russian navigator Gennady Nevelskoy in 1849 recorded the existence and navigability of this strait and � in defiance of the Qing and Japanese claims � Russian settlers established coal mines, administration facilities, schools, prisons, and churches on the island. Japan proclaimed its sovereignty over Sakhalin (which they called Karafuto) yet again in 1865 and the government built a stele announcing this at the northern extremity of the island.
In 1855, Russia and Japan signed the Treaty of Shimoda, which declared that both nationals could inhabit the island: Russians in the north, and Japanese in the south, without a clear boundary between. Russia also
