The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was formed in 1918 and was initially divided into counties and districts (this division was inherited from previous state administrations).

In 1922, the country was divided into 33 new administrative units known as oblasts (Serbo-Croatian: области, romanized: oblasti).

The Bitola Oblast included most of what is now the Southwestern, Pelagonia, Vardar, and Southeastern Statistical Regions.

It shared borders with the Skopje and Bregalnica Oblasts to the north, Albania to the east, Greece to the south, and Bulgaria to the west.

According to the 1921 census, the Bitola Oblast was linguistically dominated by speakers of Bulgarian.