Yuzhno-Kurilsky District (Russian: Ю́жно-Кури́льский райо́н) is an administrative district (raion) of Sakhalin Oblast, Russia; one of the seventeen in the oblast. Municipally, it is incorporated as Yuzhno-Kurilsky Urban Okrug. It is located on the southern Kuril Islands southeast of the Island of Sakhalin, comprising the islands of Kunashir, Shikotan, and the Habomai. The area of the district is 1,856.1 square kilometers (716.6 sq mi). Its administrative center is the urban locality (an urban-type settlement) of Yuzhno-Kurilsk, located on Kunashir Island. Population: 9,501 (2010 census); 9,727 (2002 census); 13,597 (1989 Soviet census). The population of Yuzhno-Kurilsk accounts for 61.4% of the district's total population.
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👉 South Kuril District in the context of Kuril Islands dispute
44°6′N 146°42′E / 44.100°N 146.700°E
Japan and Russia have a territorial dispute over the four southernmost Kuril Islands. The Kuril Islands are a chain of islands that stretch between the Japanese island of Hokkaido at their southern end and the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula at their northern end. The islands separate the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. The four disputed islands, like other islands in the Kuril chain which are not in dispute, were unilaterally annexed by the Soviet Union following the Invasion of the Kuril Islands at the end of World War II. The disputed islands are under Russian administration as the South Kuril District and part of the Kuril District of the Sakhalin Oblast (Сахалинская область, Sakhalinskaya oblast). They are claimed by Japan, which refers to them as its Northern Territories or Southern Chishima, and considers them part of the Nemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaido Prefecture.