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'Amur Oblast' (, ''Amurskaya oblast'') is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), situated about 8,000 km east of Moscow on the banks of the Amur and Zeya Rivers. It shares its border with the Sakha Republic in the north, Khabarovsk Krai and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the east, People's Republic of China in the south, and Chita Oblast in the west.
Population: 887,600 (2005 est.)[1]; 902,844 (2002 Census); 1,057,781 (1989 Census).
'Amur Krai' or 'Priamurye' (Аму́рский край, Приаму́рье) were unofficial names for the Russian territories by the Amur River used in the late Russian Empire that approximately correspond to modern Amur Oblast.
The administrative center of the oblast, Blagoveshchensk, is one of the oldest settlements in the Russian Far East, founded in 1856. It is a traditional center of trade and gold mining. The territory is accessed by two railroads, the Trans-Siberian railway and the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

Contents

Geography

Time zone

History

400s-900s

Medieval period

1600s-1850s

Administrative divisions

Demographics

Notes and references

Geography

The Stanovoy Range forms the dividing line between the Sakha Republic and Amur Oblast and spreads across the entire northern border of the territory. Dwarf Siberian pine and alpine tundra grow at higher elevations on these mountains and larch forests with small stands of flat-leaved birch and pine forests grow alongside the river plains. The Zeya River begins in these mountains in the northeast. The middle reaches of this great river were dammed to create the huge Zeysky Reservoir, which sprawls over 2,500 km² between the Stanovoy Range and a southern parallel range running across the center of the oblast. The low lands between these two mountain ranges make up the Upper Zeysky Plain, which is primarily marshland with larch and pine forests. South of the second ridge is the vast Amur River plain which covers up to 40% of the region.
Along the eastern border of Amur Oblast is another series of mountains separating the Amur from Khabarovsk Krai. These larch and fir-spruce forests form the watershed of the Selemdzha River, which flows south into the Zeya, continues to the city of Blagoveschchensk, and then into the Amur River. Southeast of the Selemdzha are the Bureya and the Arkhara Rivers, which have the richest remaining forests in the oblast with Korean pine, Limmonik, Mongolian oak, and other Manchurian flora. The Zeya, Amur, and Bureya Rivers form a cradle for the highest biodiversity in Amur Oblast—the Zeysko-Burenskaya Plain. Much of this plain has been burned for agriculture, but large patches still remain. Japanese Daurian and Far Eastern western cranes nest here, as well as a host of other rare birds.

Time zone

Amur Oblast is located in the Yakutsk Time Zone (YAKT/YAKST). UTC offset is +0900 (YAKT)/+1000 (YAKST).

History

400s-900s

According to the ''Bei Shi''(Dynastic History of Northern Dynasties) and the ''Sui Shu'' (Chronicles of the Sui Dynasty), both Chinese records, this area belong originally to the territory one of the five semi-nomadic Shiwei, the Bo Shiwei tribes(Chinese : 钵室韋). Their settlements were located on the north of the Yilehuli Mountains in the upper reaches of the Nen River, south of the Stanovoy Range, west of the Bureinsky and the Malyi Khingan ranges and reaching the Okhotsk Sea on the northeast. They brought tributary presents to the Tang court and disappeared at the dawn of the 10th century with the foundation of the Liao empire.

Medieval period

Later, in the 13th century, the middle-Amur and the Zeya River basin area became the motherland of the Daurs. Unlike their Jurchens contemporary neighbours, their ancestors closely related to the Khitans and the Mongols.

1600s-1850s

The area was later occupied by Manchu people before their conquest of China, it was returned to the Qing Dynasty in the Treaty of Nerchinsk and annexed by Russia in 1858 by the Treaty of Aigun between Russia and Qing Dynasty.
The oblast received its first influx of Russian settlers in the mid-17th century. They were looking for a more temperate climate as an escape from the north. However the cruelty of the Russians toward the local population forced them to look for protection from Manchuria. After the Opium War, when the Manchurian Empire was exposed to the outside world, Russian explorers once again moved to the region (mostly Cossacks and peasant farmers). The last influx of people arrived upon the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

Administrative divisions

Demographics

According to the 2002 Census, ethnic Russians, at 831,004, made up 92% of the population. Other prominent ethnic groups in the region include Ukrainians at 31,475 (3.5%), Belorussians at 7,827 (.8%), and Tatars at 4,889 (.5%). The rest of the residents identified with over 120 different ethnic groups, with each ethnic group making up less than .5% of the population. A small number of respondents (1447 people) chose not to state their ethnicity.^[1]

★ 'Total population': 902,844

★
★ ''Urban'': 594,386 (65.8%)

★
★ ''Rural'': 308,458 (34.2%)

★
★ ''Male'': 435,483 (48.2%)

★
★ ''Female'': 467,361 (51.8)

★ 'Females per 1000 males': 1073

★ 'Average age': 33.5 years

★
★ ''Urban'': 32.9 years

★
★ ''Rural'': 34.9 years

★
★ ''Male'': 31.3 years

★
★ ''Female'': 36.1 years

★ 'Number of households': 329,650 (with 876,241 people)

★
★ ''Urban'': 220,774 (with 577,222 people)

★
★ ''Rural'': 108,876 (with 299,019 people)

Notes and references

1. “All Russian Population Census 2002”


★ Informations concerning the Shiwei tribes and their relationship with the Khitans

★ History of Amur Oblast