The city of Vladivostok was founded after the Treaty of Aigun ceded a large Pacific province and the island of Sakhalin to the Russian Empire in 1858. A fort was constructed in the area the following year and on July 2, 1860 the city was officially chartered. It was to become the largest Russian port on the Pacific. Vladivostok is now the capital of Russia's Maritime Province and longtime headquarters of the Russian Pacific Fleet. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
H.P. Willmott, The Last Century of Sea Power: From Port Arthur to Chanak, 1894-1922 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009), 13.