Severo-Kurilsky District is an administrative district (raion) of Sakhalin Oblast, Russia; one of the seventeen in the oblast. Municipally, it is incorporated as Severo-Kurilsky Urban Okrug. It is located on the northern Kuril Islands to the east of the Island of Sakhalin and immediately southwest of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The area of the district is 3,501.2 square kilometers (1,351.8 sq mi). Its administrative center is the town of Severo-Kurilsk on Paramushir island. Population: 2,536 (2010 Russian census); 2,592 (2002 Census); 5,420 (1989 Soviet census). The population of Severo-Kurilsk accounts for almost 100% of the district's total population, though there is often a seasonal population on the island of Shumshu.

The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately 1,300 km (810 mi) northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the north Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many minor islets. The Kuril Islands consist of the Greater Kuril Chain and, at the southwest end, the parallel Lesser Kuril Chain. They cover an area of around 10,503.2 square kilometres (4,055.3 sq mi), with a population of roughly 20,000.