Urup in the context of "Kurils"

The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately 1,300 km (810 mi) northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the north Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many minor islets. The Kuril Islands consist of the Greater Kuril Chain and, at the southwest end, the parallel Lesser Kuril Chain. The group termed the 'South Kurils' consists of those of the Lesser Kuril Chain together with Kunashir and Iturup in the Greater Kuril Chain. The Vries Strait between Iturup and Urup forms the Miyabe Line dividing the North and South Kurils. The Kuril Islands cover an area of around 10,503.2 square kilometres (4,055.3 sq mi), with a population of roughly 20,000.

The islands have been under Russian administration since their 1945 invasion by the Soviet Union near the end of World War II. Japan claims the four southernmost islands, including two of the three largest (Iturup and Kunashir), as part of its territory, as well as Shikotan and the unpopulated Habomai islets, which has led to the ongoing Kuril Islands dispute. The disputed islands are known in Japan as the country's "Northern Territories".

Iturup (Russian: Итуру́п, romanized: iturúp; Japanese: 択捉島, romanized: etorofu-tō), also historically known by other names, is an island in the Kuril Archipelago separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. The town of Kurilsk, administrative center of Kurilsky District, is located roughly midway along its western shore. Iturup is the largest and northernmost of the southern Kurils, ownership of which is disputed between Japan and Russia. It is located between Kunashiri 19 km (12 mi) to its southwest and Urup 37 km (23 mi) to its northeast. The Vries Strait between Iturup and Urup forms the Miyabe Line dividing the predominant plants of the Kurils.

The native inhabitants of the islands since at least the 14th century were the Ainu. Various European explorers passed the area over the years but settlement varied between Russian and Japanese. The island was formally claimed as Japanese territory in 1855. Near the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Soviet Union occupied the southern Kurils and forcibly removed its Japanese residents. Japan continues to claim the islands and considers the northern edge of the island to be its own northernmost point.

Kuril Ainu is an extinct and poorly attested Ainu language of the Kuril Islands. The main inhabited islands were Kunashir, Iturup and Urup in the south, and Shumshu in the north. Other islands either had small populations (such as Paramushir) or were visited for fishing or hunting. There may have been a small mixed Kuril–Itelmen population at the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

The Ainu of the Kurils appear to have been a relatively recent expansion from Hokkaidō, displacing an indigenous Okhotsk culture, which may have been related to the modern Itelmens. When the Kuril Islands passed to Japanese control in 1875, many of the northern Kuril Ainu evacuated to Ust-Bolsheretsky District in Kamchatka, where about 100 still live. In the decades after the islands passed to Soviet control in 1945, most of the remaining southern Kuril Ainu evacuated to Hokkaidō, where they have since been assimilated.