abstract:The Governor-Generalship of the Steppes was a portion of Russian Central Asia which included both much of modern Kazakhstan (formerly known as the Kirghiz Steppe), and the region around Omsk, which was formerly part of western Siberia. It consisted of four or five provinces: Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk, Turgai, Uralsk and from 1882 to 1899 Semirechensk, having a total area of 855,000 square kilometers and a total population of 3,454,000 (both including Semirechensk) in 1897.