Karafuto Prefecture

Karafuto Prefecture
樺太廳
Former subdivision of the Empire of Japan
1905–1949

Green: Karafuto Prefecture within Japan in 1942
Light green: Other constituents of the Empire of Japan
Anthem
Karafuto tōka
CapitalŌtomari (1907–1908)
Toyohara (1908–1945)
Population 
• December 1941
406,557
History 
5 September 1905
• External territory status
1907
• Upgraded to "inner land"
1943
11–25 August 1945
• Dissolution
1 June 1949
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Sakhalin Department
Sakhalin Oblast
Today part ofRussia

Karafuto Agency, from 1943 Karafuto Prefecture,[a] commonly known as South Sakhalin, was a part of the Empire of Japan on Sakhalin. It was part of the gaichi from 1907 to 1943 and later a prefecture as part of the naichi until 1945.

Karafuto became a territory of the Empire of Japan in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War, when the portion of Sakhalin south of 50°N was ceded from the Russian Empire in the Treaty of Portsmouth. Karafuto was established in 1907 as an external territory, until being upgraded to an "Inner Land" of the Japanese metropole in 1943. Ōtomari (Korsakov) was the capital of Karafuto from 1905 to 1908 and Toyohara (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk) from 1908 to 1945.

In August 1945, the Japanese administration ceased to function following the invasion of South Sakhalin by the Soviet Union. Karafuto Prefecture was de facto annexed to the pre-existing Sakhalin Oblast, although it continued to exist de jure under Japanese law until it was formally abolished as a legal entity by Japan in June 1949.
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