The administrative center of the oblast, the city of Blagoveshchensk, is one of the oldest settlements in the far east of the country, founded in 1856.

Amur Oblast is located in the southeast of Russia, between Stanovoy Range in the north and the Amur River in the south, and borders with the Sakha Republic in the north, Khabarovsk Krai and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the east, Heilongjiang of China in the south, and with Zabaykalsky Krai in the west.

The longest rivers include the Amur, Bureya, Gilyuy, Nyukzha, Olyokma, Selemdzha, and Zeya.

The Bureya and Arkhara Rivers, southeast of the Selemdza, have the richest remaining forests in the oblast with Korean pine, Schisandra chinensis, Mongolian Oak, and other Manchurian flora.

Among the most important are gold (the largest reserves in Russia), silver, titanium, molybdenum, tungsten, copper, and tin.

[14] According to the Bei Shi (Dynastic History of Northern Dynasties) and the Sui Shu (Chronicles of the Sui dynasty), both Chinese records, this area belonged originally to the territory one of the five semi-nomadic Shiwei, the Bo Shiwei tribes (Chinese: 钵室韋).

They brought tributary presents to the Tang court and disappeared at the dawn of the tenth century with the foundation of the Liao empire.

Later, in the 13th century, the middle-Amur and the Zeya River basin area became the homeland of the Daurs and (further south) the Duchers.

The ancestors of the Daurs are thought to be closely related to the Khitans and the Mongols, while the Duchers may have been a branch of the Jurchen people, later known as the Manchus.

After the Opium War, when the Chinese Empire was exposed to the outside world, Russian explorers once again moved to the region (mostly Cossacks and peasant farmers).

In April 1920, the Far Eastern Republic, with its capital in Chita, was formed from Amur, Transbaikal, Kamchatka, Sakhalin, and Primorye regions as a democratic "buffer" state in order to avoid war with Japan.

Rapid economic growth based on gold production began at that time, and living standards improved with the arrival of young specialists.

As the Far Eastern District expanded, the demand for services such as electric power and housing also increased, which stimulated a new round of construction projects.

New cities were built, along with the Zeya Hydroelectric Power Plant (Zeiskaya GES), which still supplies electricity to most of the Far Eastern District.

[16] On 21 May 1998 Amur alongside Ivanovo, Kostroma, Voronezh Oblast, and the Mari El Republic signed a power-sharing agreement with the federal government, granting it autonomy.

[23] Vital statistics for 2022:[25][26] Total fertility rate (2022):[27] 1.46 children per woman Life expectancy (2021):[28] Total — 66.30 years (male — 61.75, female — 71.11) According to a 2012 survey[29] 25.1% of the population of Amur Oblast adheres to the Russian Orthodox Church, 5% are unaffiliated generic Christians, 1% is an Orthodox believer without belonging to any church or adheres to other (non-Russian) Orthodox churches, and 1% is an adherent of Islam.

In addition, 41% of the population declares to be "spiritual but not religious", 24% is atheist, and 2.9% follows other religions or did not give an answer to the question.

In total, the oblast is estimated to have over 90 deposits of lignite and black coal, with overall reserves of 70 billion tons.

The most important electricity producer is the Zeyskaya Hydroelectric Power Station with an installed capacity of 1,330 MW and a yearly output of 4.91 TWh.