oblast

Etymology

From a Slavic language, probably Russian о́бласть (óblastʹ, “region, province”), borrowed from Old Church Slavonic область (oblastĭ), from Proto-Slavic *obolstь, from earlier *obvolstь, *obvoldtь, a compound of *o(b)- (“over”) + *volstь (“rule, power, authority”), thus originally probably meaning "a region ruled over". Compare Proto-Slavic *obvoldati (“to rule”).

noun

1. A region or province in Slavic or Slavic-influenced countries.
   The territorial subdivision below the level of the union republic — or at least below the level of the larger union republics — is that of the oblast, the krai, or the autonomous republic. In 1977 there were 120 oblasts, 6 krais, and 20 autonomous republics, and they corresponded roughly to the American state in size. 1979, Jerry Fincher Hough, How the Soviet Union Is Governed, page 483
   It is important to note, however, that the general pattern of Nizhnii Novgorod oblast at the top and Tiumen' and Yaroslavl' oblasts in the middle, with Saratov at the bottom, occurred too often across all indicators to assume that even those differences in means that were not significant at a .05 confidence level or better occurred merely by chance. 2002, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance, page 119
   Almaty oblast (distinct from Almaty city) is the most rural of Kazakhstan's oblasts, at just 22.2 percent urban. 2010, Martha Brill Olcott, Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise, page 194