Russia: Political Subdivisions and Major Cities

Administratively, Russia has generally relied on regional divisions inherited from the Stalin and Brezhnev constitutions of 1936 and 1977. Each area with a predominantly Russian population is constituted as a territory (kray) or region (oblast); some non-Russian nationalities are constituted, in descending order of importance, as republics, autonomous regions (oblasts), and autonomous areas (okrugs). Russia has 21 republics: Adygey, Altai, Bashkortostan, Buryat, Chechnya, Chuvash, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkar, Kalmykia, Karachay-Cherkess, Karelia, Khakass, Komi, Mari El, Mordovia, North Ossetia-Alania, Sakha, Tatarstan, Tuva, and Udmurt; one autonomous region (or oblast): Jewish; 4 autonomous national areas (okrugs): Chukotka, Khanty-Mansi, Nenets, and Yamalo-Nenets; 46 Russian regions (oblasts); 9 Russian territories (krays); and 2 federal cities (gorods; the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg). In 2014 Russia occupied and annexed the Ukrainian territories of Crimea and Sevastopol, which are administered as a republic and a federal city, respectively; the annexations were not generally recognized internationally. Oblasts and krays are roughly equivalent to provinces. In addition to Moscow, other major urban areas in Russia include Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), Nizhny Novgorod (formerly Gorky), Rostov-na-Donu, Volgograd, Kazan, Samara (formerly Kuybyshev), Ufa, Perm, Yekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk), Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, and Vladivostok.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, all of the former autonomous republics of the RSFSR were raised to full republic status, and four of the autonomous regions were made full republics as well. Under President Putin, the government undertook to consolidate the patchwork federal structure of the federation and assert central government authority. In 2000 the administrative units of Russia were grouped into regional administrative districts, which now number eight. The federal districts (and their adminstrative centers) are the Northwestern (St. Petersburg), Central (Moscow), Volga (Nizhny Novgorod), Southern (Rostov-na-Donu), North Caucasian (Pyatigorsk), Ural (Yekaterinburg), Siberian (Novosibirsk), and Far Eastern (Khabarovsk). Subsequently, a number of smaller administrative units have been abolished and merged with larger neighboring regions to form several new territories (krays)

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Russo-Ukrainian War
• Post-Soviet Russia
• War and Revolution
• Reaction, Reform, and RevolutionExpansion
• Empire and European Eminence
• Consolidation of the Russian State
• Early Russia
• History
• Government
• Russian Far East
• Northern and Northeastern Siberia
• Eastern Siberia
• Western Siberia
• Ural Area
• North Caucasus
• Volga
• North and Northwest European Area
• Central European Area
• General
• Religion and Education
• Political Subdivisions and Major Cities
• Population and Ethnic Groups
• Major Geographic Features
• Bibliography

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