The only autonomous oblast in the Russian Federation. It is located in the southern part of the Russian Far East. In the south, it borders on the Amur River coincides with the state border of Russia and China.
The titular ethnic group is the Jews. The defining markers of their differences from the titular nation of the country are the language (Yiddish, Hebrew) and religion (Judaism). The uniqueness of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast is that it was created as a national-territorial entity for immigrants in a territory that had never before been a place of compact residence for a titular group. In 1930, the Resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR "On the Formation of the Birobidzhan Jewish National Raion as part of the Far Eastern Krai" was adopted. In 1934, the Birobidzhan Jewish National Raion received the status of an autonomous national region. For a long time, the Jewish Autonomous Region was an integral part of the Khabarovsk Territory. In 1991, the Regional Council of People's Deputies adopted the Declaration on State and Legal Status, and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast became an independent entity of the Russian Federation.
According to the results of the All-Russia Population Census of 2010, the share of the titular ethnic group in the JAO is only 1% of the population, while the Russians make up 92.7%. Nevertheless, the ethnic specification of the region is quite actively marked in the public sphere (symbolic, festive/memorable/historical dates, etc.). The situation in interethnic relations is assessed as stable.