Sixty-Four Villages East of the River

Territory ceded by the People's Republic of China to Russia

The Sixty Four Villages East of the River were a group of Manchu, Daur and Han inhabited villages located on the left (north) bank of the Amur River (Heilong Jiang) opposite of Heihe, and on the east bank of Zeya River opposite of Blagoveshchensk. The area totaled
Among Russian historians, the district occupied by the villages is sometimes referred as Zazeysky rayon (the "Trans Zeya District" or "The district beyond the Zeya"), because it was separated by the Zeya from the regional capital, Blagoveshchensk.

In the summer of 1857, the Russian Empire offered monetary compensation to China's Qing dynasty government if they would remove the native inhabitants from the area; however, their offer was rebuffed. The following year, in the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, the Qing ceded the north bank of the Amur to Russia. The estimates published between the late 1870s and early 1890s varied between 12,000 and 16,000, peaking in 1894, at 16,102 (including 9,119 Han Chinese, 5,783 Manchus, and 1,200 Daurs). and 5,400 Chinese miners in the Amur Oblast as it existed at the time, as well as 4,008 Chinese urban residents in Blagoveshchensk and probably elsewhere. During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, Qing forces attempted to blockade Russian boat traffic on the Amur near Aigun, starting from 16 July, and attacked Blagoveshchensk along with Chinese Honghuzi bandits. In response to these attacks the military governor of the Amur region, Lieutenant General Konstantin Nikolaevich Gribskii, ordered the expulsion of all Qing subjects who remained north of the river.

The Republic of China (ROC), has never recognized the Russian occupation as legitimate. However, the Republic of China now based in Taiwan never renounced sovereignty of the area nor does it recognize any border agreements signed by the People's Republic of China with any other countries due to the restrictions imposed by Article 4 of the Constitution of the Republic of China and Section 5 of Article 4 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China.