In the Qing era Manchuria was originally governed separately from the
rest of China. Later on it was divided into three provinces
(Heilongjiang, Jilin/Kirin, Fengtian/Liaoning) with borders similar to
the current PRC borders. This 3-province division continues until the
Japanese invasion (didn't matter much anyway since the region was
effectively under warlord rule from 1916 - 1931). When the Japanese created Manchukuo it was divided into five, then 19 provinces. (
wiki link). During RoC era (post-1945) Manchuria was divided into 8 provinces (9 if you count Hsingan which is nowadays part of Inner Mongolia).
As for the Amur and Ussuri regions, used to be divided between Heilongjiang and Jilin.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Qing_Dynasty_1820.png)
Edited by Voskhod - 11-Dec-2008 at 10:56