Orenburg Oblast (russian: Оренбургская область, ''Orenburgskaya oblast'') is a
federal subject of
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
(an
oblast
An oblast (; ; Cyrillic (in most languages, including Russian and Ukrainian): , Bulgarian: ) is a type of administrative division of Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the Soviet Union and the Kingdo ...
). Its
administrative center
An administrative center is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune is located.
In countries with French as administrative language (such as Belgium, Lu ...
is the
city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
of
Orenburg
Orenburg (russian: Оренбу́рг, ), formerly known as Chkalov (1938–1957), is the administrative center of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Ural River, southeast of Moscow. Orenburg is also very close to the border with Kazakhst ...
. From 1938 to 1957, it bore the name ''Chkalov Oblast'' () in honor of
Valery Chkalov. Population: 2,033,072 (
2010 Census).
Geography
Orenburg Oblast's internal borders are with the republics of
Bashkortostan
The Republic of Bashkortostan or Bashkortostan ( ba, Башҡортостан Республикаһы, Bashqortostan Respublikahy; russian: Республика Башкортостан, Respublika Bashkortostan),; russian: Респу́блик� ...
and
Tatarstan to the north,
Chelyabinsk Oblast to the north-east, and with
Samara and
Saratov
Saratov (, ; rus, Сара́тов, a=Ru-Saratov.ogg, p=sɐˈratəf) is the largest city and administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River upstream (north) of Volgograd. Saratov had a population of 901, ...
oblasts to the west. Orenburg Oblast also shares an international border with
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
to the east and south. The oblast is situated on the
boundary between Europe and Asia. The majority of its territory lies west of the continental divide in European Russia and smaller sections in the east situated on the Asian side of the divide. The most important river of the oblast is the
Ural and the largest lake
Shalkar-Yega-Kara. Orenburg is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude. The highest point of the oblast is high
Nakas (mountain).
Google Earth
Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...
Administrative divisions
Demographics
Population:
Settlements
According to the 2010 Census, the ethnic composition of the oblast was as follows:
*
Russians
, native_name_lang = ru
, image =
, caption =
, population =
, popplace =
118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 '' Winkler Prins'' estimate)
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
: 75.9%
*
Tatars
The Tatars ()[Tatar]
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different Turki ...
: 7.6%
*
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs (also spelled Qazaqs; Kazakh: , , , , , ; the English name is transliterated from Russian; russian: казахи) are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group native to northern parts of Central Asia, chiefly Kazakhstan, but also part ...
: 6%
*
Ukrainians
Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian. The majority of Ukrainians are Eastern Ort ...
: 2.5%
*
Bashkirs: 2.3%
*
Mordvins: 1.9%
*
Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
: 0.6%
*
Chuvash: 0.6%
*
Belarusians
, native_name_lang = be
, pop = 9.5–10 million
, image =
, caption =
, popplace = 7.99 million
, region1 =
, pop1 = 600,000–768,000
, region2 =
, pop2 ...
: 0.3%
*
Azeris: 0.4%
*other groups, none more than 0.2% of the population
*30,449 people were registered from administrative databases, and could not declare an ethnicity. It is estimated that the proportion of ethnicities in this group is the same as that of the declared group.
;Vital statistics for 2012
*Births: 29 736 (14.7 per 1000)
*Deaths: 28 225 (13.9 per 1000)
*Total fertility rate:
2009 - 1.76 , 2010 - 1.80 , 2011 - 1.80 , 2012 - 1.95 , 2013 - 2.00 , 2014 - 2.03 , 2015 - 2.01 , 2016 - 1.95(e)
Religion
As of a 2012 survey,
40.2% of the population of Orenburg Oblast adheres to the
Russian Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = ru
, image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg
, imagewidth =
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia
, abbreviation = ROC
, type ...
, 3% declare themselves to be generic
nondenominational Christians (excluding the Protestant definition), 2% are Orthodox Christian believers who do not belong to any church or belong to non-Russian
Orthodox churches.
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
s constitute 13% of the population. 3% of the population are followers of the
Slavic native faith (Rodnovery), 6.8% are followers of other religions or did not give an answer to the survey. In addition, 20% of the population declares to be "
spiritual but not religious
"Spiritual but not religious" (SBNR), also known as "spiritual but not affiliated" (SBNA), is a popular phrase and initialism used to self-identify a life stance of spirituality that does not regard organized religion as the sole or most valuable ...
" and 12% to be
atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
.
Economy
Orenburg Oblast is one of the major agricultural areas of Russia. Its climate is favorable to farming with a humid spring, dry summer and many sunny days, which make perfect conditions for cultivating hard
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
and
rye,
sunflower
The common sunflower (''Helianthus annuus'') is a large annual forb of the genus ''Helianthus'' grown as a crop for its edible oily seeds. Apart from cooking oil production, it is also used as livestock forage (as a meal or a silage plant), ...
s,
potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Uni ...
es,
pea
The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species ''Pisum sativum''. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and d ...
s,
beans,
corn
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...
, and
gourds.
The range of the oblast's export commodities includes oil and oil products, gas and gas produced products, rolled ferrous and non-ferrous metals,
nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow t ...
,
asbestos
Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...
,
chromium
Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal.
Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hard ...
compounds, rough copper, electric engines, and radiators, which are used to make products from the machine-building industry.
See also
*
Ashchebutak (air base)
*
List of Chairmen of the Legislative Assembly of Orenburg Oblast
*
Black Dolphin Prison
Federal Governmental Institution — penal colony No. 6 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in Orenburg Oblast,, or shortly russian: ФКУ ИК-6 УФСИН России по Оренбургской области commonly known as th ...
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
States and territories established in 1934