Treaty of Shimoda

The 1855 agreement between Japan and Russia that established their first formal boundary in the Kuril Islands and opened several Japanese ports to Russian ships.

Perry Expedition: A United States naval mission led by Matthew C. Perry that compelled Japan to open ports to American ships in 1853–1854. Its arrival helped create the diplomatic opening in which Russia pursued its own treaty with Japan.
Kuril Islands: A volcanic island chain extending northeast from Hokkaido toward Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. The treaty placed the islands south of Iturup under Japanese control and those north of Urup under Russian control.
Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875): An 1875 agreement in which Japan received the entire Kuril chain in exchange for relinquishing claims to Sakhalin. It replaced the 1855 division of the Kurils with Japanese sovereignty over the whole chain.
Treaty of Shimoda (1855) and Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875): Two agreements that established different arrangements for the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin between Japan and Russia. The comparison shows how the 1875 settlement replaced Shimoda’s divided Kuril boundary.
Yevfimiy Putyatin: A Russian admiral and diplomat who led negotiations with Japan and signed the Treaty of Shimoda. Putyatin headed the Russian mission that negotiated the treaty.
Iturup: An island in the southern Kuril chain, called Etorofu in Japanese. The treaty assigned Iturup to Japan, making it the boundary’s southernmost Japanese island.
Sakhalin: A large island in the North Pacific, north of Hokkaido and east of mainland Russia. The 1855 treaty left Sakhalin undivided, a question later addressed by the 1875 agreement.
Treaty of Portsmouth (1905): The 1905 peace agreement that ended the Russo-Japanese War. Unlike Shimoda’s negotiated boundary settlement, it followed a war and redrew control of southern Sakhalin.
Tokugawa shogunate: The military government that ruled Japan from 1603 until 1868. Its officials negotiated the agreement on Japan’s behalf during the late Edo period.
Urup: An island in the central Kuril chain, between Iturup and Simushir. The treaty assigned Urup and the islands north of it to Russia.

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Matthew C. PerryRelated: The Kanagawa agreement helped set the pattern for later treaties with foreign powers.