Jewish Autonomous Region

Jewish Autonomous Region, Russian Yevreyskaya Avtonomnaya Oblast, also called Birobidzhan, autonomous oblast (region), far eastern Russia, in the basin of the middle Amur River. Most of the oblast consists of level plain, with extensive swamps, patches of swampy forest, and grassland on fertile soils, now largely plowed up. In the north and northwest are the hills of the Bureya Range and the Lesser Khingan, clothed in dense forest of spruce, pine, fir, and larch. Winters are dry and severely cold, summers hot and moist. Although established in 1934 theoretically as a home for Jews in the Soviet Union, no mass Jewish migration developed, and Russian and Ukrainian settlers heavily outnumber the Jews. Most of the population live along the two main lines of communication, the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the navigable Amur. Timber working is well developed at centres on the railway, and tin is mined at Khingansk. Iron ore has not been exploited. Agriculture—chiefly the cultivation of wheat, rye, oats, soybeans, sunflowers, and vegetables—is concentrated in the Amur plain; fishing, especially for salmon, is important on the rivers. Birobidzhan is the administrative centre. Area 13,900 square miles (36,000 square km). Pop. (2008 est.) 185,535.