Jewish Autonomous Oblast

The Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO; Russian: Евре́йская автоно́мная о́бласть, Yevreyskaya avtonomnaya oblast; Yiddish: ייִדישע אװטאָנאָמע געגנט, yidishe avtonome gegnt) is a federal subject of Russia. It is located in the Russian Far East, near Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast in Russia and Heilongjiang province in China. The main city is Birobidzhan.

Jewish Autonomous Oblast Еврейская автономная область (Russian) ייִדישע אװטאָנאָמע געגנט (Yiddish)
—  Autonomous oblast  —
Flag Coat of arms
Coordinates: 48°36′N 132°12′E
Political status
Country	Russia
Federal district	Far Eastern[1]
Economic region	Far Eastern[2]
Established	7 May 1934[3]
Administrative center	Birobidzhan
Government (as of July 2014)
• Governor[4]	Rostislav Goldshteyn[5]
• Legislature	Legislative Assembly[6]
Statistics
Area (as of the 2002 Census)[7]
• Total	36,000 km2 (14,000 sq mi)
Area rank	61st
Population (2010 Census)[8]
• Total	176,558
• Rank	80th
• Density[9]	4.9/km2 (13/sq mi)
• Urban	67.6%
• Rural	32.4%
Population (2016 est.)
• Total	170,000[10]
Time zone(s)	VLAT (UTC+11:00)
ISO 3166-2	RU-YEV
License plates	79
Official languages	Russian[11]
[www.eao.ru Official website]

In the late 1940s, the Jewish population here was around 46,000–50,000, about 25% of the population. In 2010 there were only 1,628 Jews in the JAO (less than 1% of the population).^[8]