“oblast”, territorial division | FundéuRAE

2023-06-19 11:15:14

Name oblast, which designates a type of territorial division of several countries, it is written in lowercase and with tildealthough it is preferable to use region, administrative region o province.

In the news, especially those related to the war in Ukraine, it is not uncommon to find examples such as the following: “In the east, specifically in the Donetsk Oblast, they offered primary care services”, “She is concerned about the lack of defenses around Belgorod Oblast” or “They left parts of Lugansk and Donetsk Oblasts in the hands of separatists.”

Whether you mean Ukraine, Russia or Bulgaria, the proper form is oblast, with tilde, since the transcription conforms to the orthographic guidelines of Spanish and it is a plain voice ending in a consonant group. Being a well-off voice, no need for quotes or italics.

On the other hand, the common names that designate the administrative divisions (such as region, district, municipality…) are written in lower case, so it is not suitable Oblast in oblast. It must be preceded and not postponedas sometimes seen as a calque of English: the oblast of Sumi and not the Sumi Oblast.

Although the use of oblast is not incorrect, just as it is sometimes called land to a German federal state, reference works such as the Little illustrated Larousse and the Salvat universal encyclopedic dictionary offer the alternatives region (usual in Ukraine), province (in Bulgaria) and administrative region (in Russia, often shortened to region). These last forms may be preferable in general and journalistic texts, since they are more transparent.

Being a word that ends in the sound combination /st/, what is recommended, according to the indications of academic grammar, is that remain unchanged in the plural: the oblasts

Thus, in the above examples it would have been better to write “In the east, specifically in the Donetsk region, they offered primary care services”, “It is concerned about the lack of defenses around the Belgorod region” and “They left parts of the regions of Lugansk and Donetsk in the hands of separatists”, although it could also be worth oblast in all three cases.

What has been explained can also be applied to kraia Russian territorial division that can be translated into Spanish as administrative territoryy rayon (o rayon), Which is equivalent to district.