Coastal stratigraphy of eastern Hokkaido indicates that decimeters of coastal uplift occurred repeatedly in the late Holocene. Employing radiocarbon dating and tephrochronology, we identify along a 100 km length of the Kuril subduction zone six uplift events since ~2,800 years B.P. Uplift events occur at the same frequency as unusually high tsunamis. Each coastal uplift event, which occurs on average every 500 years, is the product of decade-long post seismic deep slip on the down dip extension of the seismogenic plate boundary following an offshore multi-segment earthquake that generates unusually high tsunamis.