Outer Manchuria

Proper noun

Outer Manchuria

1. (neologism) The part of Russia near northeastern China (including Primorsky Krai and other nearby areas) which was annexed by the Russian Empire in the mid 19th century understood as part of Manchuria; similar or equivalent to Russian Manchuria.
   • In particular, Elliot found himself confronted by a redoubtable opponent in Count Nikolai Pavlovich Ignatyev, the Russian Ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Ignatyev was cunning, agile and bold. He had had adventures aplenty and narrow escapes in Central Asia, where he had sought to build Russian...2009, Christopher Meyer, Getting Our Way: 500 Years of Adventure and Intrigue: The Inside Story of British Diplomacy, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, page 181
   • Two years later, Czar Alexander II went a step further and coerced the Chinese into signing the Treaty of Peking, thereby adding another slice of Outer Manchuria—what is now Primorye and southern Khabarovsk Territory—to the Russian empire. In the mid-1960s, it seemed as if Mao might try to get them...2010, John Vaillant, “Markov”, in The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival (Adventure/Nature), →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 59
2. (figuratively) Any proverbially distant or remote place.
   • "Fine. Give me your manuscript and in an hour I’ll come back with forty copies. You can sign the first one for your Australian neighbor, and he’ll wedge open his skylight with it. You’ve got the wrong period, Ivan! These days the most popular man in France is a footballer, not a poet . . ."
     "In...2010 [2009], Andreï Makine, translated by Geoffrey Strachan, The Life of an Unknown Man: A Novel, Graywolf Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 24

   Synonyms:

   Outer Mongolia, Timbuktu

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see outer, Manchuria (a region of northeast China and Manchuria)
   • Zhang Xinxin was born in 1953 in Nanjing, but not long after her birth, her family moved to Beijing. Like many urban youth of her generation, she was sent to a military farm in the Great Northern Wilderness of outer Manchuria to accept education from farmers and soldiers during the Cultural...1998, Working Paper, numbers 267-274, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 27
   • East Asia was a fourth issue. The Soviets were neutral in the Pacific until the last week of the war. Then the Soviets declared war, seizing from Japan Outer Manchuria, southern Sakhalin Island, and the entire Kurile Island chain. At Potsdam, the Soviets asked for an occupation zone in Japan, like...2011, Joseph S. Nye, Jr.; David A. Welch, “The Cold War”, in Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation: An Introduction to Theory and History, 8th edition, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 139