The Russian Provisional Government was a provisional government of the Russian Empire and Russian Republic, announced two days before and established immediately after the abdication of Nicholas II. The intention of the provisional government was the organization of elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly and its convention. The provisional government, led first by Prince Georgy Lvov and then by Alexander Kerensky, lasted approximately eight months, and ceased to exist when the Bolsheviks gained power in the October Revolution in October [November, N.S.] 1917.

The Russian Empire, also known as Imperial Russia or simply Russia, was a vast realm that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its proclamation in November 1721 until its dissolution in March 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about 22,800,000 square kilometres (8,800,000 sq mi), roughly one-sixth of the world's landmass, making it the third-largest empire in history, surpassed only by the British and Mongol empires; it also held colonies in North America between 1799 and 1867. The empire's 1897 census, the only one it conducted, found a population of 125.6 million with considerable ethnic, linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic diversity.