In 1799, under the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, a trading post and settlement was established on the island by the villages of Akkeshi and Nemuro as a base for fishermen, and for trade with the Ainu, the native peoples of the Kurils, Sakhalin and Hokkaidō.

Administration of the island came under the village of Habomai in Hokkaido during the Meiji period.

The inhabitants of the island were mostly engaged in commercial fishing for Pollock and harvesting konbu.

The island is now uninhabited and is administered as part of the Sakhalin Oblast of the Russian Federation.

The offshore islets of Kuril islands mostly remained unnamed during the Soviet era.