1. Introduction
The multilingual problem of place and oceanographic names often occurs in the region of the Okhotsk Sea, especially in Southern Sakhalin (Minami Karafuto) and in the Kuril Islands (Chishima Islands) areas, due to historical reasons. Confusion and misunderstanding may arise when we read scientific papers or documents on these regions. On receiving the recommendation from the PICES Workshop on the Okhotsk Sea and Adjacent Areas, held in Vladivostok on June 19-24, 1995 (PICES Annual Report, 1995), the Science Committee on Physical Oceanography and Climate (POC) of PICES has decided to prepare a multilingual nomenclature list of place and oceanographic names in that region at the PICES 4th Annual Meeting, and asked us (Yutaka Nagata and Vyacheslav B. Lobanov) to make a draft manuscript. We proposed a format of the list and items to be included for the POC Meeting in the 5th PICES Annual Meeting. POC accepted these and again asked us to complete the draft of the nomenclature list by the time of the 6th Annual Meeting (October 1997).
Fortunately, in these regions, we need to consider only two languages, Russian and Japanese, and their translations into English.
