Amur (or Amoor, also called Sakhalin), a river formed by the junction (about 53° N. lat. and 121° E. long.) of the Shilka and the Argun, which both come from the south-west—the former rising in the foothills of the Yablonoi Mountains. From the junction, the river flows first south-east and then north-east, and, after a total course of 3060 miles, falls into the Sea of Okhotsk, opposite the island of Sakhalin. Its main tributaries are the Sungari and the Ussuri, both from the south. Above the Ussuri, the Amur is the boundary between Siberia and Manchuria; below it, the river runs through Russian territory. It is very valuable for navigation, and carries a considerable fleet of steamers, but on account of the bar at its mouth, goods are generally disembarked, and carried overland to
Alexandrovsk. The river is frozen for six months of the year; in summer there are extensive inundations.
From as early as 1636, Russian adventurers made excursions into the Chinese territories of the Lower Amur. In 1666 they built a fort at Albazin, and succeeded in navigating from that fort to the mouth of the river. In 1685, the fort was taken and destroyed by the Chinese, but was retaken promptly by the Russians, who again, in 1689, abandoned it and the whole of the Amur to the Chinese. But soon fur-hunters of Siberia, Russian traders, and adventurers, encouraged by government, continued to pursue their vocations on Chinese ground. In 1854-56 two military expeditions were conducted by Count Muravieff, who twice descended the river, unopposed by the Chinese, and established the stations of Alexandrovsk and Nikolaevsk. In 1858 China agreed to the treaty of Tientsin, by which the boundaries of Russia and China were defined. The left bank of the Amur, and all the territory north of it, became Russian; and below the confluence of the Ussuri, both banks. In 1860, after the occupation of Pekin by the British and French, General Ignatieff secured the signature of Prince Kung to a treaty, by which Russia acquired the wide territory extending ten degrees of latitude nearer the temperate regions, and running from the shore of the North Pacific westward to the banks of the river Ussuri, a principal affluent of the Amur. An enormous advantage to Russia of this acquisition of territory was the fact that it conferred on that country the advantage of harbours on the Pacific in a comparatively temperate latitude, where navigation is impeded by ice for not more than three or four months a year.
This vast territory falls into two Russian provinces under one governor—the Maritime Province (q.v., which includes all the coast south and north of the river to the Arctic Ocean) and the government of Amur, inland and north of the river. The latter has an area of 173,000 sq. m., and a pop. of 87,500, mostly belonging to the Tungusic stock; the Russian settlers numbering about 8000. Much of it is richly timbered, and is admirably adapted for pasturage and agriculture, though the climate is severe. On the middle course of the river the summer heat is excessive, and the cold in the long winter very keen. Fur-bearing animals are still plentiful. Blagovestschensk is the capital of the General Government and of the Amur Province; Khabarovka of the Maritime Province. Nikolaevsk, once the only important place, is on the Amur, 26 miles from its mouth, where the river is mile wide, and in places 15 feet deep; but the political centre tends southward to the more temperate section of the huge maritime province (area, 730,000 sq. m.; pop. 74,000), near the southern end of which is situated the important harbour of Vladivostok, which, since 1872, has telegraphic communication with Europe, and is one terminus of the great trans-Siberian railway in progress. A part of the line between Vladivostok and Khabarovka was opened in 1893. The river Amur is to be passed on an iron bridge mile long. The island of Saghalien (q.v.) is also a part of the Amur region in the wider sense.