Kuril Islands  The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; or ; Japanese: or ) is a volcanic archipelago in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast that stretches approximately northeast from Hokkaido, Japan to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the north Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many minor rocks. It consists of the Greater Kuril Chain and the Lesser Kuril Chain. The total land area is , and the total population is 19,434. All the islands are under Russian administration. Japan claims the four southernmost islands, including two of the three largest ones (Iturup and Kunashir), as part of its territory as well as Shikotan and the Habomai islets, which has led to the ongoing Kuril Islands dispute. The disputed islands are known in Japan as the country's "Northern Territories". In 2018, Russo-Japanese talks on reunification of islands with Japan resumed. The name "Kuril" originates from the autonym of the aboriginal Ainu, the islands' original inhabitants: "kur", meaning "man". It may also be related to names for other islands that have traditionally been inhabited by the Ainu people, such as "Kuyi" or "Kuye" for Sakhalin and "Kai" for Hokkaidō. In Japanese, the Kuril Islands are known as the Chishima Islands (Kanji: , literally, "Thousand Islands Archipelago"), also known as the Kuriru Islands (Katakana: , literally, "Kuril Archipelago"). Once the Russians reached the islands in the 18th century they found a pseudo-etymology from Russian "kurit' " (курить – "to smoke") due to the continual fumes and steam above the islands from volcanoes. The Kuril Islands form part of the ring of tectonic instability encircling the Pacific Ocean referred to as the Ring of Fire. The islands themselves are summits of stratovolcanoes that are a direct result of the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Okhotsk Plate, which forms the Kuril Trench some east of the islands. The chain has around 100 volcanoes, some 40 of which are active, and many hot springs and fumaroles. There is frequent seismic activity, including a magnitude 8.5 earthquake in 1963 and one of magnitude 8.3 recorded on November 15, 2006, which resulted in tsunami waves up to reaching the California coast.