Transcaspian Oblast

Transcaspian Oblast Закаспійская область
Oblast
Coat of arms
Location in the Russian Empire
Country	Russian Empire
Governorate-General	Turkestan
Established	1881
Abolished	1921
Capital	Askhabad
Area
• Total	605,150.93 km2 (233,650.08 sq mi)
Population  (1897)
• Total	382,487
• Density	0.63/km2 (1.6/sq mi)

The Transcaspian Oblast,^[a] or simply Transcaspia,^[b] was an oblast of the Russian Empire and early Soviet Russia to the east of the Caspian Sea during the second half of the 19th century until 1924.

It was bounded to the south by Iran's Khorasan Province and Afghanistan, to the north by the former Russian province of Uralsk, and to the northeast by the former Russian protectorates of Khiva and Bukhara. Part of Russian Turkestan, it corresponded roughly to the territory of present-day Turkmenistan and southwestern Kazakhstan.

The name of the oblast (literally, 'Beyond [the] Caspian') is explained by the fact that until the construction of the Trans-Aral Railway in the early 20th century the easiest way to reach this oblast from central Russia (or from Russian Transcaucasia) was across the Caspian Sea, by boat from Astrakhan or Baku.

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