Strait of Tartary - History

History

The name Tartars had long been used by Europeans for various peoples of Inner Asia and North Asia. Since the Manchus' rise to prominence in 1644, the name "Tartars" became applied to them as well, and Manchuria (and Mongolia) became known to the Europeans as the "Chinese Tartary". Accordingly, when 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 whereof the name was introduced by Philipp Franz von Siebold in his book Nippon: Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan (1832–54).

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 La Perouse decided not to risk it and turned south even though locals had told him that Sakhalin was an island. In 1797 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 used it to evade a British fleet during the Crimean War.