The highest point of Saratov Oblast is an unnamed hill of the Khvalynsk Mountains reaching 369 metres (1,211 ft) above sea level.

The climate in the region is temperate: a long dry hot summer, on the left bank of Volga river a considerable number of days with a temperature above +30 °C (86 °F).

All marked negative manifestations occur against the background of dangerous natural processes: landslides, karst, earthquakes, flooding.

As a result, the volume of capital expenditures aimed at protecting the environment of the region increased due to all sources of financing.

This enterprise for a long time exported to the dump of the Alexander Village Soviet production waste containing nickel and cadmium.

Here the pollution is tens of times higher than the maximum permissible concentration for phosphates, chlorides, iron, ammonia and nitrates.

The only measure is a one-time garbage collection in the territories of municipalities, initiated by public organizations of the Saratov region and "subbotniks", which are held in the spring and autumn.

These include carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, hydrocarbons, aldehydes, heavy metals, ammonia, and atmospheric dust.

The main sources of anthropogenic aerosol air pollution are thermal power plants (CHPs) that consume coal.

Combustion of coal, cement production and smelting of cast iron give a total dust emission to the atmosphere equal to 170 million tons per year.

In 1334, the Arab traveler Ibn Battuta visited it and recorded that Ukek is a city of "average size, but beautifully built, with abundant benefits and severe cold".

In the next 200 years, a rare population of the Wild Fields was represented by the Nogais, and then by the Kalmyk nomad camps, Cossacks and fishing co-operatives of Russian monasteries.

By decree of Emperor Paul I of December 12, 1796, the Saratov Viceroyalty was abolished, and its counties were divided between the Penza and Astrakhan Governorates.

Between the autumn of 1891 through the summer of 1892, the territory of the Saratov Governorate became part of the main zone of crop failure caused by drought (see Russian famine of 1891–92).

By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 7, 1941, in Saratov oblast were included the territories of 15 cantons of the former Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Balzer, Zolotovsky, Kamensk, Ternovsky, Kukkus, Zelman, Krasnoyarsk, Marksstadt, Untervalden, Fedorov, Gnadenfly, Krasno-Kutsky, Lysanderzhsky, Mariental and Eckheim).

[17] After the abolition of the Balashov oblast by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of November 19, 1957, these cities and districts were returned to the Saratov region.

On 4 July 1997, Saratov, alongside Bryansk, Chelyabinsk, Magadan, and Vologda signed a power-sharing agreement with the government of Russia, granting it autonomy.

There were twenty recognized ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each in Saratov Oblast at the time of the 2010 Census.