The Oblast is located in the South-East of the Republic. In the East, it borders on Russia and in the South, on Ukraine. The Oblast occupies 19.5% of the country’s territory, 16.4% of the population reside there. Gomel (with the population of 515 thousand people) is the center. The Oblast comprises 21 districts, 278 rural councils, 17 towns, including 8 towns of Oblast jurisdiction, 18 urbanized settlements.

The Oblast is one of the most industrially developed regions. Within the industry structure, the highest share belongs to the food industry, ferrous metallurgy and machine engineering. These branches yield almost half of the industrial output of the Oblast. The Oblast produces almost 90% of ferrous metallurgy products of the Republic. The branch is represented by the Belarusian Steel Works in Zhlobin and Rechitsa Metizny Plant. The Oblast also occupies a leading place in the production of fuel, timber, wood processing, pulp-and-paper, and micro-biological products.

Most agricultural districts specialize in meat and milk production, cultivation of grain, flax, potatoes and, in the vicinity of major cities, poultry production and vegetable growing.

National and international railways  and transport routes cross the Oblast’s territory. Gomel, Zhlobin and Kalinkovichi are large railway junctions. Gomel is located at the crossing of the Bahmach-Vilnius and Briansk-Brest railways. The European transport corridor runs across the Oblast (Gomel-Minsk-Klaipeda) providing access to hauliers from East Ukraine and Central Russia to the sea ports in Klaipeda, Ventspils and Kaliningrad.

Major cities of the Oblast include Gomel, Mozyr, Rechitsa, Svetlogorsk, and Zhlobin. Gomel, an administrative center, is one of the main educational and cultural centers of the country. There function the Gomel University, the Belarusian college of railway transport, polytechnic, co-operative and medical colleges. There are Gomel Oblast drama theatre, Gomel Oblast Russian drama theatre, Gomel Oblast puppet theatre, natural history museum, planetarium. The city possesses such historical monuments as Gomel Palace and Park Ensemble and Peter and Paul Cathedral.

The Oblast’s territory includes the Pripyatsky National Park where the natural landscape unique to Belarusian Polessiye is preserved in its natural state and on the basis of which natural changes in land drainage are studied in the Polessiye lowland. Also there functions the Polessiye Radiation and Ecological Preserve. Its goal is to preserve natural complexes with their unique landscape and geo-botanical structure that were affected by radioactive contamination in the wake of the Chernobyl accident, in their natural state, as well as carry out comprehensive studies and continuous radio- and biological monitoring.