autonomous oblast

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun One of the administrative divisions of the former Soviet Union created for certain “smaller” nations and characterized by following features: they were given an autonomy within a union republic or, in the RSFSR, within a krai; had a status lower than an autonomous republic; had a different titulary nation from that of their union republic/krai. Abbreviated as AO.