Regions of Kazakhstan

Regions of Kazakhstan Қазақстан аймақтары (Kazakh) Регионы Казахстана (Russian)
Also known as: Province Oblast
A clickable map of Kazakhstan exhibiting its 14 regions. • d •
Category	Unitary state
Location	Republic of Kazakhstan
Number	14 regions & 3 cities (Almaty, Astana, Baikonur)
Populations	36,175 (Baikonur) – 2,685,009 (South Kazakhstan)
Areas	680 km2 (263 sq mi) (Almaty) - 427,980 km2 (165,245 sq mi) (Karaganda)
Government	Region government, National government
Subdivisions	District

Kazakhstan is divided into 14 regions (Kazakh: облыстар / oblıstar; singular: облыс / oblıs; Russian: области / oblasti; singular: область / oblast' ). The regions are further subdivided into districts (Kazakh: аудандар / awdandar; singular: аудан / awdan; Russian: районы / rayony; singular: район / rayon ). Three cities, Baykonur, the largest city Almaty and the capital Astana are not part of the regions they are surrounded by.

Over the last 60 years, both the distribution and names of regions of Kazakhstan have changed considerably. Major changes were several fusions and splits between Guryev and Mangystau, Karaganda and Dzhezkazgan, Almaty and Taldy-Kurgan, East Kazakhstan and Semipalatinsk and Kostanay, Turgay and Tselinograd, respectively. Changes in region names were often in line with the renaming of cities, such as in the case of Alma-Ata/Almaty. After the administrative reform in 1997, the last change happened since then took place in 1999, when parts of North Kazakhstan that originally belonged to Kokshetau region became part of Akmola. The 1990s merges were in order to dilute Russian population in the resulting region and to avoid having regions where Russians form majority.