Existence of the word is a little bad news On the other hand the phase out of and introduction of oblast is good news Seems they had the same purpose same level Maybe in more specific articles one would use transliteration I agree with your opinion of Region for me too it sounds not very administrative mmmh and county is realy strange I allways think of US if I hear it But it is used on SE sweden subdivions and some others To use county in Europe can cause confusion in some countries because of historic connotations With content from your table I enriched Subdivisions of Russia Translation maybe you can help with some cirilica last word was serbo croatian