Autonomous oblasts of the Soviet Union in the context of "Autonomous okrug"

An Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR, Russian: автономная советская социалистическая республика, АССР, romanized: avtonomnaya sovetskaya sotsialisticheskaya respublika) was a type of administrative unit in the Soviet Union (USSR), created for certain ethnic groups to be the titular nations of. The ASSRs had a status lower than the constituent union republics of the USSR, but higher than the autonomous oblasts and the autonomous okrugs.

In the Russian SFSR, for example, Chairmen of the Government of the ASSRs were officially members of the Government of the Russian SFSR. Unlike the union republics, the autonomous republics only had the right to disaffiliate themselves from the Union when the union republic containing them did so, as well as to choose to stay with the Union separately from them. The level of political, administrative and cultural autonomy they enjoyed varied with time—it was most substantial in the 1920s (Korenizatsiya), the 1950s after the death of Joseph Stalin, and in the Brezhnev Era.

An autonomous oblast (Russian: Автономная область (АО)) is an autonomous form of an oblast (administrative-territorial structure) in the USSR. Of the post-Soviet states, autonomous oblasts currently exist only in Russia (the Jewish Autonomous Oblast) and Tajikistan (the Gorno-Badakhshan).

There were autonomous oblasts of the Soviet Union and later some federal subjects of Russia were autonomous oblasts: the one remaining is the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Eastern Rumelia was an autonomous province (oblast in Bulgarian, one of its official languages) of the Ottoman Empire. Serb Autonomous Regions are known as oblasts.

A krai (Russian: край, romanized: kray, IPA: [krai], lit. 'region, edge') is a type of federal subject of the Russian Federation. The country is divided into 85 federal subjects, of which nine are krais. Oblasts, another type of federal subject, are legally identical to krais and the difference between a political entity with the name "krai" or "oblast" is purely traditional; both are constituent entities equivalent in legal status in Russia with representation in the Federation Council. During the Soviet era, the autonomous oblasts could be subordinated to republics or krais, but not to oblasts. Outside of political terminology, both words have a very similar general meaning ("region" or "area" in English) and can often be used interchangeably. When a distinction is desirable, "krai" is sometimes translated into English as "territory", (closer to "edge" in literal translation, what is more related with the March meaning as a "borderland") while "oblast" can variously be translated to "province" or "region", but both of these translations are also reasonable interpretations of "krai".

The South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast (Russian: Юго-Осетинская автономная область, romanized: Yugo-Osetinskaya avtonomnaya oblast'; Georgian: სამხრეთ ოსეთის ავტონომიური ოლქი, romanized: samkhret osetis avt'onomiuri olki; Ossetian: Хуссар Ирыстоны автономон бӕстӕ, romanized: Xussar Irystony avtonomon bæstæ) was an autonomous oblast of the Soviet Union created within the Georgian SSR on April 20, 1922. It was an ethnic enclave created for the Ossetians within Georgia by Soviets as a reward for their political loyalty during the 1921 Soviet invasion of Georgia. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the South Ossetia war, its territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia, which is recognized only by five states, while Georgia and other countries consider it to be territory of Georgia.

The population of the South Ossetian AO consisted mostly of ethnic Ossetians, who made up roughly 66% of the 100,000 people living there in 1989, and Georgians, who constituted a further 29% of the population as of 1989.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) was an autonomous oblast within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic that was created on July 7, 1923. Its capital was the city of Stepanakert. The majority of the population were ethnic Armenians.