Editing Strait of Tartary (section)

== History ==
[[File:La-Perouse-Chart-of-Discoveries.jpg|thumb|left|The coasts of the "Channel of [[Tartary]]" were charted by [[Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse|La Pérouse]] in 1787. The land adjacent to it from the west was referred to at the time as the "[[Chinese Tartary]]"]]

=== Yuan dynasty ===
During the [[Yuan dynasty]], the Yuan armies crossed the strait in the [[Mongol invasions of Sakhalin]]. Alleged remnants of a Chinese fort dating back to the Mongol Yuan era can be found in Sakhalin today.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-03-07 |title=China - Yuan Dynasty, Mongol Rule, Silk Road {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/China/The-Yuan-or-Mongol-dynasty |access-date=2025-03-07 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>

"[[Tartary]]" is an older name used by Europeans to refer to a vast region covering [[Inner Asia]], [[Central Asia]] and [[North Asia]]. The toponym is derived from the medieval ethnonym [[Tartars]], which was applied to various [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] and [[Mongol]] semi-[[nomadic empire]]s, including the Yuan dynasty that ruled over China and the straits of Northeast Asia.<ref name=":0" />

=== Qing dynasty ===
During the [[Transition from Ming to Qing|destruction of the Ming dynasty and rise of the Qing dynasty]] in 1644, the name "Tartars" became applied to the [[Manchus]] as well,<ref name=":0">Starting since the first book about the Manchu conquest: [[Martino Martini]], ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=nhhbAAAAQAAJ De Bello Tartarico Historia]''. [[Antwerp]] 1654</ref> and Manchuria (and Mongolia) became known to the Europeans as the "Chinese Tartary".<ref>For example, Jean-Baptiste Du Halde,<br />[https://archive.org/details/descriptiongog01duha ''Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise''] ([[The Hague|La Haye]]: H. Scheurleer, 1736)</ref> Accordingly, when [[Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse|La Pérouse]] charted most of the strait between Sakhalin and the mainland "Chinese Tartary" in 1787, the body of water received the name of the Strait (or Channel, or Gulf) of Tartary.

In [[Japan]], the strait is named after [[Mamiya Rinzō]], who traveled to the strait in 1808<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.vintage-views.com/eshop/catalog/MAMIYA-RINZO-STRAITAsiatic-Russia-p-51440.html |title=MAMIYA RINZO STRAIT,Asiatic Russia - Antique Prints and Antique Maps from |publisher=Vintage-Views.com |access-date=2012-12-01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081121044746/http://www.vintage-views.com/eshop/catalog/MAMIYA-RINZO-STRAITAsiatic-Russia-p-51440.html |archive-date=2008-11-21 }}</ref> whereof the name was introduced by [[Philipp Franz von Siebold]] in his book ''Nippon: Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan'' (1832–54).

[[File:Delisle - Carte d'Asie (Compagnieland).jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Early 18 c. French map depicting the [[Vries Strait]] and the Strait of Tartary.]]
On Russian maps, the short narrowest section of the strait (south of the mouth of the Amur) is called [[Nevelskoy Strait]], after Admiral [[Gennady Nevelskoy]], who explored the area in 1848; the body of water north of there, into which the Amur River flows, is the [[Amur Liman]]; and the name of "Strait of Tartary" is reserved for the largest section of the body of water, south of [[Nevelskoy Strait]].

The Tartar Strait was a puzzle to European explorers since, when approached from the south, it becomes increasingly shallow and looks like the head of a bay. In 1787 [[Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse|La Perouse]] decided not to risk it and turned south even though locals had told him that Sakhalin was an island. In 1797 [[William Robert Broughton|William Broughton]] also decided that the Gulf of Tartary was a bay and turned south. In 1805 [[Adam Johann von Krusenstern]] failed to penetrate the strait from the north. [[Mamiya Rinzō]]'s journey of 1808 was little known to Europeans. [[Gennady Nevelskoy]] passed the strait from the north in 1848. The Russians kept this a secret and [[Amur Annexation|used it to evade]] a British fleet during the Crimean War.

=== Recent history ===
[[Soviet submarine S-117|''S-117'']] was a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[Shchuka class submarine]] that was lost on or about December 15, 1952, due to unknown causes in the Strait of Tartary in the [[Sea of Japan]]. The boat may have collided with a [[surface ship]] or struck a [[naval mine|mine]]. All forty-seven crewmen died in the incident.

The southeastern part of the Strait of Tartary was the site of one of the tensest incidents of the Cold War, when on September 1, 1983, [[Korean Air Lines Flight 007]], carrying 269 people including a sitting U.S. congressman, [[Larry McDonald]], strayed into the Soviet air space and was attacked by a Soviet [[Sukhoi Su-15|Su-15 interceptor]] just west of [[Sakhalin Island]]. The plane came down on the waters off the strait's only land mass, [[Moneron Island]]. An intensive naval search by the U.S. with assistance of Japanese and Korean vessels [[Korean Air Lines Flight 007#Search for KAL 007 in international waters|was carried on in a {{convert|225|sqmi|km2|sigfig=2}} area of the strait just north of Moneron Island]].