[10] Being dominated by the Siberian High winter cold, the continental climates of the krai see extreme freezing for an area adjacent to the sea near the mid-latitudes, but also warm summers in the interior.

[12] Khabarovsk Krai has a severely continental climate with its northern areas being subarctic with stronger maritime summer moderation in the north.

In its southerly areas, especially inland, annual swings are extremely strong, with Khabarovsk itself having hot, wet, and humid summers which rapidly transform into severely cold and long winters, where temperatures hardly ever go above freezing.

The second-largest city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur has even more violent temperature swings than Khabarovsk, with winter average lows below −30 °C (−22 °F), but in spite of this, avoiding being subarctic because of the significant heat in summer.

The resistance of the Chinese, however, obliged the Cossacks to quit their forts, and by the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689), Russia abandoned its advance into the basin of the river.

The area between the Uda River and the Greater Khingan mountain range (i.e. most of Lower Amuria) was left undemarcated and the Sino-Russian border was allowed to fluctuate.

[21][22] Later in the nineteenth century, Nikolay Muravyov conducted an aggressive policy with China by claiming that the lower reaches of the Amur River belonged to Russia.

The Krai took its modern form in 1991, just before the USSR's collapse when the Jewish Autonomous Oblast was separated from its jurisdiction and made into a direct federal subject of Russia.

Since 1991, CPSU lost all the power, and the head of the Oblast administration, and eventually the governor, was appointed/elected alongside elected regional parliament.

The Krai Administration supports the activities of the Governor, who is the highest official and acts as guarantor of the observance of the Charter in accordance with the Constitution of Russia.

The machine construction industry consists primarily of a highly developed military–industrial complex of large-scale aircraft- and shipbuilding enterprises.

[28] The Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association is currently among the krai's most successful enterprises, and for years has been the largest taxpayer of the territory.

Komsomolsk-on-Amur is the iron and steel centre of the Far East; a pipeline from northern Sakhalin supplies the petroleum-refining industry in the city of Khabarovsk.

In addition, 28% of the population declared to be "spiritual but not religious", 23% are atheist, and 16.8% follow other religions or did not give an answer to the question.