Sakhalin Oblast

Sakhalin Oblast is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast) comprising the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the Russian Far East. The oblast has an area of . Its administrative center and largest city is Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. As of the 2021 Census, the oblast has a population of roughly 500,000. The vast majority of the oblast's residents are ethnic Russians, with a small minority of Sakhalin Koreans. Sakhalin Oblast is rich in natural gas and oil, and is Russia's fourth wealthiest federal subject and wealthiest oblast. It borders by sea Khabarovsk Krai to the west and Kamchatka Krai to the north, along with Hokkaido, Japan to the south. History The etymology of Sakhalin can be traced back to the Manchu hydronym Sahaliyan Ula (Manchu: ) for "Black River" (i.e. the Amur River). Sakhalin shares this etymology with the Chinese province of Heilongjiang (Chinese for "black dragon river (Chinese: 黑龙江, Hēilóngjiāng)").