Talk:Amur basin

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Page scope

Amur basin is a Growing Region: a named region that sits above Growing Areas and below the regional complex and gene pool. It covers the Russian side of the middle and lower Amur and of the Ussuri: Primorsky Krai, Amur Oblast and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast entire, and eleven districts and cities of Khabarovsk Krai along the two rivers down to the estuary. The Chinese bank belongs to Northeast China; the upper basin, on the Shilka and the Argun, to Transbaikal.

Data verification

Check the main page for the sources behind each statement. Discuss the boundary, the units the region takes in, and the accessions and news items that belong to it here.

Discussion

Why the region is on the map

No source read names the "Amur basin" as a place where cannabis grows. The region groups the places that the sources name.
Floras since 2000: Aistova (2009) calls hemp a widespread weed of crops in Amur Oblast that forms stable populations; Vinogradova et al. (2020) report it in Primorye (dumps, roadsides, floodplain and alder forests) and in Khabarovsk Krai (ruderal habitats); Rubtsova (2018) lists it among the plants of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast that run wild from cultivation.
Police reports since 2000 describe wild-growing hemp in Primorye (Krasnoarmeysky District 2017; Khankaysky, Khorolsky, Spassk, Oktyabrsky, Pogranichny and Mikhailovsky districts 2026; Ussuriysk urban okrug 2026, "no signs of cultivation"), in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (2026), in Khabarovsk Krai (Nikolayevsky and Komsomolsky districts 2025; Bikinsky, Komsomolsky and Ulchsky districts 2026) and in Amur Oblast (more than 716 hectares destroyed in 2026; Oktyabrsky District). In 2009 the head of the Federal Drug Control Service gave 1,500 to 2,500 hectares a year of wild-growing hemp for Amur Oblast.
Earlier: Adrianov's sheet of 1926 (Khabarovsk, "everywhere in weedy places"); hemp among the crops of the Daurs and Duchers in 17th-century reports; Old Believer and Ukrainian settlers sowing it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; archaeological seed from Primorye (Neolithic, Krounovka culture, Bohai period).
Licensed hemp grown in Amur Oblast in 2020 is described on the page. It is not what puts the region on the map.

The name

The title follows the river that the region's land drains to. It is not the whole drainage basin: the Chinese side of the Amur and the Ussuri is in Northeast China, and the upper basin on the Shilka and the Argun is in Transbaikal. Part of Primorye drains straight to the Sea of Japan and is in the region because the whole of Primorsky Krai is. The historical names in the infobox are those of the sources: Приамурье (Priamurye, the Amur country) and Южно-Уссурийский край (the South Ussuri Krai), used by Argudyaeva (2010) for the lands of the Old Believer settlers.

Growing status

The status is Active. Floras of 2009, 2018 and 2020 and police reports from 2017 to 2026 describe hemp growing in the region, and licensed hemp was sown in Amur Oblast in 2020. No source says that hemp has stopped growing there. Eradication reports are not read as an end to growing.

How the border is drawn

The border is a proxy built from whole administrative units, with OpenStreetMap relation numbers: Primorsky Krai (151225), Amur Oblast (147166) and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (147167); and in Khabarovsk Krai, Bikinsky (1651737), Vyazemsky (1651738), imeni Lazo (1651739), Khabarovsky (1651729), the city of Khabarovsk (1782064), Nanaysky (1651727), Amursky (1651684), Komsomolsky (1651726), the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur (1788811), Ulchsky (1651689) and Nikolayevsky (1651609).
The Khabarovsk units are those along the Amur and the Ussuri, from the Bikin to the estuary. Police reports of 2025 and 2026 name wild hemp in Bikinsky, Komsomolsky, Ulchsky and Nikolayevsky districts. The rest of the krai, on the coast of the Strait of Tartary and the Sea of Okhotsk and in the mountains to the north, is left out; no source read describes hemp there.
The three federal subjects are taken whole: Aistova (2009) writes of the whole of Amur Oblast, and the floras and police reports cover Primorye and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast as wholes. Whole subjects are a coarse proxy. The northern taiga of Amur Oblast is inside the border although no source read names a place there.
The shape is cut to the land (Natural Earth 10 m land), so the sea is not counted, and the open water of Lake Khanka (Natural Earth 10 m lakes) is taken out. The Northeast China shape is subtracted, so the two regions meet on the frontier without overlapping.
The union is about 754,000 km², the figure in the infobox. The infobox point (49.68, 135.63) is the centre of the shape.
The border is not drawn from accession or news points.

Accessions

Three herbarium sheets gathered inside the border are attached to the region: Adrianov 239 (Khabarovsk, 1926), Zolotarev s.n. (Mongol, 1934) and Voroshilov 5215 (near Vladivostok, 1950). All three are classed as feral.

Where the sources disagree

Aistova (2009) and Vinogradova et al. (2020) list hemp in the alien (adventive and invasive) flora; Rubtsova (2018) calls it a plant that runs wild from cultivation; the police reports call it wild-growing, дикорастущая. The page keeps each source's word.
The UNODC profile of 2003 speaks of seizures, not of growth, in the Amur and Primorsky regions; the page says seizures.

Sources

Floras: Aistova (2009) and Rubtsova (2018) read on CyberLeninka and SciUp; Vinogradova et al. (2020), the Cannabis sativa entry in the journal's PDF.
Police and press reports: each read in Russian. EastRussia (9 June 2017); PrimaMedia (20 July and 13 September 2026); Argumenty i Fakty (3 August 2026, Jewish Autonomous Oblast; 3 October 2013, Primorye); Izvestia (5 August 2025); Gubernia (16 July 2026); Rambler (24 July 2026, a police release); ASN24 (25 September 2026, a police release); Rossiyskaya Gazeta (20 August 2003).
Ivanov (2009): the published text of a speech by the head of the Federal Drug Control Service.
History: Argudyaeva (2010) and Streltsova (2021); the 17th-century reports are known through Sergusheva (2023), who cites Ogorodnikov (1927).
Archaeology: Garkovik (2006), Sergusheva (2012, 2026).
Licensed hemp: GTRK Amur (23 August 2020).
Herbarium sheets: the Moscow Digital Herbarium records of MW0062802 and MW0062803.

Not used

Vavilov (1926) cites E. Regel's record of feral hemp in the Ussuri country; the book could not be read here. The Vavilov Institute's lists of local hemps from Primorye could not be read either.
The Voroshilov sheet's label is legible only on the scan; the sheet is attached to the region but not described on the page.
The 2013 Argumenty i Fakty report's line that people gather hemp "as fodder for livestock" is ironic in context and is not used.
A press report of the second stage of the 2026 operation in Primorye gives one stand as about 20 square kilometres in its lead and 19,200 square metres in its text; it is not used.
No source read gives districts for the 2026 figure for Amur Oblast beyond Oktyabrsky District.