In light of recent events, I thought it might be a good idea to make a map with an overview of Russian regions. There are 6 types of subdivisions in Russia:

1. Republics – nominally autonomous, with its own language and constitution, created around local non-Russian ethnicities in these regions but when it comes to international affairs are basically parts of Russia
2. Oblasts – your normal region
3. Krais – your normal region but when new regions were created in the USSR all krais were supposed to have autonomous regions within them, something oblasts couldn’t do. Over time the situation changed, but the names remained the same.
4. Autnomous okrugs – another form of ethnicity-based subdivisions in Russia but without official regional languages and with an option to become a part of other regions. Among all the autonomous okrugs, currently, only Chukotka is not a part of any other region.
5. Autonomous oblast – there’s only one of them, which was created by Stalin in the 1920s to send all the Jews there. Never worked and no one knows why it is still there. But hey, they are still trying to preserve Yiddish there!
6. Federal cities – biggest cities, i.e. Moscow and St. Petersburg

In the first decade of the 21st century, a few autonomous okrugs were fully incorporated into respective oblasts losing their subject status brining the current number of the federal subjects to 83.

As usual, you can contact me here for this and other maps in better resolution, to suggest new maps and for other matters.