Samarkand Oblast


The Samarkand Oblast was an oblast of the Russian Empire between 1887 and 1924. It roughly corresponded to most of present-day central Uzbekistan and northwestern Tajikistan. It was created out of the northeastern part of the Emirate of Bukhara. It consisted of the uyezds of Samarkand, Dzhizak, Katta-Kurgan and Khodzhent.

Demographics

As of 1897, 860,021 people populated the oblast. Uzbeks constituted the majority of the population. Significant minorities consisted of Tajiks and Kazakhs. The Turkic speaking population amounted to 609,204 people.

Ethnic groups in 1897

TOTAL860,021100%
Uzbeks507,58759%
Tajiks230,38426.8%
Kazakhs63,0917.3%
Uyghurs19,9932.3%
Turkic Sarts18,0732.1%
Russians12,4851.5%
Jews1,3120.2%

Russian Revolution

On April 30, 1918, the region became a part of Turkestan ASSR. On October 27, 1924 as a result of the national-territorial reorganisation of Central Asia, the Samarkand region became a part of the Uzbek SSR of the Soviet Union.