Yuri was originally uninhabited. 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, and immediately before World War II, the population of the island was 501 people, mostly engaged in commercial fishing.
Krasheninnikov, Stepan Petrovich, and James Greive. The History of Kamtschatka and the Kurilski Islands, with the Countries Adjacent. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1963.
Rees, David. The Soviet Seizure of the Kuriles. New York: Praeger, 1985. ISBN0-03-002552-4