The oblast was created in 1930 as the part of Soviet policy of national delimitation. By 1926, Koreans represented more than a quarter of the rural population of the Primorsky Krai. Soviet official policy toward national minorities demanded the formation of a Korean autonomous territory for the large Korean community in the Soviet Far East. The option for establishing a Korean national territory in the Soviet Far East was seriously debated in Moscow before it was finally adopted in 1928.