Outer Manchuria

While Manchuria now more normatively refers to Northeast China, it originally included areas consisting of Priamurye between the left bank of Amur River and the Stanovoy Range to the north, and Primorskaya which covered the area in the right bank of both Ussuri River and the lower Amur River to the Pacific Coast. The region was ruled by a series of Chinese dynasties and the Mongol Empire, but control of the area was ceded to the Russian Empire by the Qing China during the Amur Annexation in the 1858 Treaty of Aigun and 1860 Treaty of Peking, with the terms "Outer Manchuria" and "Russian Manchuria" arising after the Russian annexation. The same general area became known as Green Ukraine after a large number of settlers from Ukraine came to the region.

Outer Manchuria Приаму́рье (Russian) 外满洲 (Chinese) Russian Manchuria
Historical region of Russia
Outer Manchuria, north and east of the China-Russia border, shown in light red.
Country	Russia (since 1860)
Federal subjects	Jewish Autonomous Oblast  Khabarovsk Krai  Primorsky Krai  Amur Oblast  Zabaykalsky Krai
Named for	Manchuria
Area
• Total	910,000 km2 (350,000 sq mi)
Demonym	Manchu

"Manchuria" was coined in the 19th century to refer to the northeastern part of the Qing Empire, the traditional homeland of the Manchu people. After the Amur Annexation by the Russian Empire, the ceded areas were known as "Outer Manchuria" or "Russian Manchuria".^{[better source needed]} (Russian: Приаму́рье, romanized: Priamurye; simplified Chinese: 外满洲; traditional Chinese: 外滿洲; pinyin: Wài Mǎnzhōu or simplified Chinese: 外东北; traditional Chinese: 外東北; pinyin: Wài Dōngběi; lit. 'outer northeast').

Outer Manchuria comprises the modern-day Russian areas of Primorsky Krai, southern Khabarovsk Krai, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, the Amur Oblast and the island of Sakhalin.^{: 338 (map)}

The northern part of the area was disputed by Qing China and the Russian Empire, in the midst of the Russia's Far East expansion, between 1643 and 1689. The Treaty of Nerchinsk signed in 1689 after a series of conflicts, defined the Sino–Russian border as the Stanovoy Mountains and the Argun River. When the Qing sent officials to erect boundary markers, the markers were set up far to the south of the agreed limits, ignoring some 23,000 square miles of territory.^: 38

In 1809, the Japanese government sent explorer Mamiya Rinzō to Sakhalin and the region of the Amur to determine the extent of Russian influence and penetration.^: 334

To preserve the Manchu character of Manchuria, the Qing dynasty discouraged Han Chinese settlement in Manchuria; nevertheless, there was significant Han Chinese migration into areas south of the Amur and west of the Ussuri.^: 332 By the mid-19th century, there were very few subjects of the Qing Empire living in the areas north of the Amur and east of the Ussuri,^: 333 and Qing authority in the area was seen as tenuous by the Russians.^: 336 In 1854, the Tartar-general of Heilungkiang memorialized that the only way to stop Russian expansion into the region was to bring Han Chinese settlers to the unpopulated areas.^: 339 In 1856, Russian military entered the area north of the Amur on pretext of defending the area from France and the UK,^: 341 Russian settlers founded new towns and cut down forests in the region,^: 341 and the Russian government created a new maritime province, Primorskaya Oblast, including Sakhalin, the mouth of the Amur, and Kamchatka with its capital at Nikolayevsk-on-Amur.^: 341 After losing the Opium Wars, Qing China was forced to sign a series of treaties that gave away territories and ports to various Western powers as well as to Russia and Japan; these were collectively known by the Chinese side as the Unequal Treaties. Starting with the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and, in the wake of the Second Opium War, the Treaty of Peking in 1860, the Sino–Russian border was realigned in Russia's favour along the Amur and Ussuri rivers. As a result, China lost the region^: 348 that came to be known as Outer Manchuria or Russian Manchuria (an area of 350,000 square miles (910,000 km²)) and access to the Sea of Japan. In the wake of these events, the Qing government changed course and encouraged Han Chinese migration to Manchuria (Chuang Guandong).^: 348

In 2016, Victor L. Larin (Виктор Лаврентьевич Ларин), the director of the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East in Vladivostok, said that the fact that Russia had built Vladivostok “is a historical fact that cannot be rewritten,” and that the notion that Vladivostok was ever a Chinese town is a “myth” based on a misreading of evidence that a few Chinese sometimes came to the area to fish and collect sea cucumbers.

Despite the potential for territorial claims (in theory) coextensive with the Qing dynasty, Chinese leaders as of 2014 had not suggested that Mongolia and part of Outer or Russian Manchuria would be a legitimate objective. In April 2023, US diplomat John Bolton speculated that China (PRC) is "undoubtedly eyeing this vast territory, which potentially contains incalculable mineral wealth," (referring to Asian Russia generally) further noting that "[s]ignificant portions of this region were under Chinese sovereignty until the 1860 Treaty of Peking".

Today, there are reminders of the ancient Manchu domination in English-language toponyms: for example, the Sikhote-Alin, the great coastal range; the Khanka Lake; the Amur and Ussuri rivers; the Greater Khingan, Lesser Khingan and other small mountain ranges; and the Shantar Islands. Evenks, a non-Manchu Tungusic people, who speak a closely related Tungusic language, make up a significant part of the indigenous population.

In 1973, the Soviet Union renamed several locations in the region that bore names of Chinese origin. Names affected included Partizansk for Suchan (Sucheng); Dalnegorsk for Tetyukhe; Rudnaya Pristan for Teyukhe‐Pristan; Dalnerechensk for Iman; Sibirtsevo for Mankovka; Gurskoye for Khungari; Cherenshany for Sinan cha; Rudny for Lifudzin; and Uglekamensk for Severny Suchan.

On February 14, 2023, the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People's Republic of China relabelled eight cities and areas inside Russia in the region with Chinese names. The eight names are Boli for Khabarovsk, Hailanpao for Blagoveshchensk, Haishenwai (Haishenwei) for Vladivostok, Kuye for Sakhalin, Miaojie for Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, Nibuchu for Nerchinsk, Outer Khingan (Outer Xing'an) for Stanovoy Range, and Shuangchengzi for Ussuriysk.

• Chinese Tartary
• 1991 Sino–Russian Border Agreement
• Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island
• Zhenbao Island
• Sixty-Four Villages East of the River
• 1900 Amur anti-Chinese pogroms
• Amur Annexation
• Outer Mongolia
• 1972年俄罗斯远东地区地名变更 (1972 Russian Far East Place Name Changes)