Editing Sakhalin (section)

==== European exploration ====
[[File:Kitchen-21-Russia-Sahalin-2820.jpg|thumb|right|Display of Sakhalin on maps varied throughout the 18th century. This map from a 1773 atlas, based on the [[:commons:File:CEM-44-La-Chine-la-Tartarie-Chinoise-et-le-Thibet-1734-Amur-2572.jpg|earlier work]] by [[Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville|d'Anville]], who in his turn made use of the information collected by [[Jesuit missions in China|Jesuits]] in 1709, asserts the existence of Sakhalin{{snd}}but only assigns to it the northern half of the island and its northeastern coast (with [[Cape Patience]], discovered by [[Maarten Gerritsz Vries|de Vries]] in 1643). Cape Aniva, also discovered by de Vries, and [[Cape Crillon]] (''Black Cape'') are, however, thought to form part of the mainland.]]
[[File:La-Perouse-Chart-of-Discoveries.jpg|thumb|left|La Perouse charted most of the southwestern coast of Sakhalin (or "Tchoka", as he heard natives call it) in 1787.]]
The first European known to visit Sakhalin was [[Martin Gerritz de Vries]], who mapped [[Cape Patience]] and Cape Aniva on the island's east coast in 1643. The [[Netherlands|Dutch]] captain, however, was unaware that it was an island, and 17th-century maps usually showed these points (and often Hokkaido as well) as part of the mainland. As part of a nationwide Sino-French cartographic program, [[Jesuit missions in China|Jesuits]] [[Jean-Baptiste Régis]], Pierre Jartoux, and [[Xavier Ehrenbert Fridelli]] joined a Chinese team visiting the lower [[Amur River|Amur]] (known to them under its [[Manchu language|Manchu]] name, Sahaliyan Ula, "the Black River"), in 1709,<ref>{{cite book |title= Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise, enrichie des cartes générales et particulieres de ces pays, de la carte générale et des cartes particulieres du Thibet, & de la Corée; & ornée d'un grand nombre de figures & de vignettes gravées en tailledouce |volume= 1 |last= Du Halde |first= Jean-Baptiste |author-link= Jean-Baptiste Du Halde |year= 1736 |publisher=H. Scheurleer |location=La Haye |isbn=<!--[none]--> |page= xxxviii |url= https://archive.org/stream/descriptiongog01duha#page/n41/mode/2up |access-date= June 16, 2010}}</ref> and learned of the existence of the nearby offshore island from the [[Nanai people|Nanai]] natives of the lower Amur.<ref>{{cite book |title= Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise, enrichie des cartes générales et particulieres de ces pays, de la carte générale et des cartes particulieres du Thibet, & de la Corée; & ornée d'un grand nombre de figures & de vignettes gravées en tailledouce |volume=4 |last=Du Halde |first= Jean-Baptiste |author-link=Jean-Baptiste Du Halde |year= 1736 |publisher=H. Scheurleer |location=La Haye |isbn=<!--[none]--> |pages= 14–16 |url= https://archive.org/stream/descriptiongog04duha#page/n23/mode/2up |access-date=June 16, 2010}} The people whose name the Jesuits recorded as ''Ke tcheng ta tse'' ("[[Hezhen]] Tatars") lived, according to the Jesuits, on the Amur below the mouth of the [[Dondon River]], and were related to the ''Yupi ta tse'' ("Fishskin Tatars") living on the Ussuri and the Amur upstream from the mouth of the Dondon. The two groups might thus be ancestral of the [[Ulch people|Ulch]] and [[Nani people|Nanai]] people known to latter ethnologists; or, the "Ke tcheng" might in fact be Nivkhs.</ref>

The Jesuits did not have a chance to visit the island, and the geographical information provided by the Nanai people and Manchus who had been to the island was insufficient to allow them to identify it as the land visited by de Vries in 1643. As a result, many 17th-century maps showed a rather strangely shaped Sakhalin, which included only the northern half of the island (with Cape Patience), while Cape Aniva, discovered by de Vries, and the "Black Cape" (Cape Crillon) were thought to form part of the mainland.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}

Only with the 1787 expedition of [[Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse|Jean-François de La Pérouse]] did the island began to resemble something of its true shape on European maps. Though unable to pass through its [[Nevelskoy Strait|northern "bottleneck"]] due to contrary winds, La Perouse charted most of the [[Strait of Tartary]], and islanders he encountered near today's [[Nevelskoy Strait]] told him that the island was called "Tchoka" (or at least that is how he recorded the name in French), and "Tchoka" appears on some maps thereafter.<ref>{{Cite book|first= Jean François de Galaup, comte de|last=La Pérouse
|title= Voyage de Lapérouse, rédigé d'après ses manuscrits, suivi d'un appendice renfermant tout ce que l'on a découvert depuis le naufrage, et enrichi de notes par m. de Lesseps |year= 1831 |editor-first= Jean Baptiste |editor-last=de Lesseps |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=jLSxhmCvbVsC&pg=PA258 |pages= 259–266}}</ref>