Click on image for larger annotated version
Sakhalin Island is located just north of Japan and east of the Khabarovski
and Primorski Krai of the Russian Far East. With the Kuril Islands, it
forms Sakhalin Province. The Island is long and narrow, almost 589 miles
in length, extending from temperate on the south end to tundra on the
north. It is 100 miles wide and covers an area of 29,500 square miles.
Sakhalin is rich in natural resources, with substantial timber, fishing
and oil reserves. The Island has mountainous terrain on both East and West
coasts with a long central valley between. The Strait of Tartar, defined
by the warm Japanese current, separates the west coast of Sakhalin Island
from mainland Russia. The Sea of Okhotsk to the east is cold and freezes
solid through the winter. The warm and cold water create a climate of
wind, rain and fog, with substantial snowfall during winter. Sakhalin was
first settled by Japanese fishermen along the southern coasts. Sakhalin
Island was used by Russia as a penal colony in the late 19th and early
20th century. Being sent to Sakhalin was considered worse than being sent
to Siberia. Permanent agricultural settlements on Sakhalin took in men who
had finished serving their time, exile settlers, and members of families
who voluntarily followed prisoners to Sakhalin.
Vegetation on the island ranges from tundra and stunted forests of birch
and willow in the north to dense deciduous forest in the south. Fishing,
mainly of crab, herring, cod, and salmon, is the principal economic
activity around the coast. Petroleum and natural gas extraction in the
north, coal mining, and lumbering, including paper production, are the
basis of the rest of the economy. The main agricultural activity is
raising livestock.
Photojournal note:
EarthKam was formerly known as KidSat. To see images of KidSat, see
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/KidSat .
