KARAFUTO, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE OF. — On the island of Sakhalin, erected by apostolic brief on 21 May 1938 through division of the Vicariate of Sapporo.
From 1907 onwards, a priest of the Diocese of Hakodate (now Sendai) annually visited the Polish and Japanese Catholics present on the island of Sakhalin. In 1912, the first church was built in the district of Toyohara. The mission, initially entrusted to the Franciscans of the Polish Province of the Immaculate Conception, in 1941, with the establishment of a hierarchy exclusively indigenous in Japan, passed to an apostolic administration of the local secular clergy. It covers an area of 36,000 sq. km and has a population of 331,949 Japanese, with several thousand Koreans and about two thousand aboriginal Ainu.
The number of Catholics is about 557, with 33 catechumens, 3 foreign priests and 1 indigenous priest, 1 lay brother, and 3 catechists. There are 3 primary stations, 5 secondary stations, one church, and 2 chapels. Occupied by Russian soldiers on 15 August 1945, Karafuto was forcibly evacuated by missionaries and faithful on 17 May 1948.