Russia is a country with a fairly high level of urbanization. Today in our country there are 15 million cities. What cities of Russia in terms of population are leading at the moment? You will find the answer to this question in this fascinating article.
Urbanization and Russia
Is urbanization an achievement or a scourge of our time? It is difficult to answer this question. After all, this process is characterized by enormous inconsistency, provoking both positive and negative consequences.
Under this concept in the broad sense, the growing role of the city in human life is understood. This process, bursting into our lives in the twentieth century, fundamentally changed not only the reality surrounding us, but also the person himself.
From a mathematical point of view, urbanization is an indicator that measures the proportion of the urban population of a country or region. Those countries in which this indicator exceeds 65% are considered highly urbanized. In the Russian Federation, about 73% of the population lives in cities. You can find a list of Russian cities by population below.
It should be noted that the processes of urbanization in Russia took place (and are taking place) in two aspects:
- The emergence of new cities that covered new areas of the country.
- The expansion of existing cities and the formation of large agglomerations.
History of Russian cities
In 1897, within the framework of modern Russia, the All- Russian population census counted 430 cities. Most of them were small towns, large at that time there were only seven. And they were all up to the line of the Ural Mountains. But in Irkutsk - the current center of Siberia - there were hardly 50 thousand inhabitants.
A century later, the situation with cities in Russia has changed dramatically. It is possible that the main reason for this was a completely reasonable regional policy pursued by the Soviet authorities in the twentieth century. One way or another, but by 1997 the number of cities in the country increased to 1087, and the share of urban population increased to 73 percent. At the same time, the number of large cities increased twenty-three times! And today they live in almost 50% of the total population of Russia.
Thus, only a hundred years have passed, and Russia has transformed from a country of villages into a state of big cities.
Russia is a country of megacities
The largest cities of Russia in terms of population are distributed across its territory quite unevenly. Most of them are located in the most populated part of the country. Moreover, in Russia there is a steady trend towards the formation of agglomerations. It is they who form the frame grid (socio-economic and cultural), on which the entire settlement system is strung, as well as the country's economy.
850 cities (out of 1087) are located within European Russia and the Urals. By area, it is only 25% of the state. But on the vast Siberian and Far Eastern open spaces - only 250 cities. This nuance makes the development of the Asian part of Russia extremely difficult: the shortage of large megacities is especially acute here. After all, there are colossal mineral deposits. However, there is simply no one to develop them.
The Russian North also cannot boast of a dense network of large cities. Focal population distribution is also characteristic of this region. The same can be said of the south of the country, where in the mountainous and foothill regions only lonely and brave daredevil cities "survive".
So can Russia be called the country of big cities? Of course. Nevertheless, in this country, with its vast expanses and colossal natural resources, there is still a shortage of large cities.
Largest cities in Russia by population: TOP-5
As mentioned above, as of 2015, there are 15 million-plus cities in Russia. Such a rank, as you know, receives that settlement, the number of inhabitants of which exceeded one million.
So, we list the largest cities in Russia by population:
- Moscow (from 12 to 14 million inhabitants according to various sources).
- St. Petersburg (5.13 million people).
- Novosibirsk (1.54 million people).
- Yekaterinburg (1.45 million people).
- Nizhny Novgorod (1.27 million people).
Next on the list is Kazan, Samara, Omsk, Chelyabinsk and Rostov-on-Don. The number of inhabitants in all these cities also exceeds one million.
If you carefully analyze the rating of Russian cities in terms of population (namely, its upper part), you will notice one interesting feature. We are talking about a fairly large gap in the number of inhabitants between the first, second and third line of this rating.
So, in the capital there are over twelve million people, in St. Petersburg - about five million. But the third largest city in Russia - Novosibirsk - is inhabited by only one and a half million inhabitants.
Moscow is the largest megalopolis of the planet
The capital of the Russian Federation is one of the largest megacities in the world. How many residents live in Moscow is very difficult to say. Official sources say about twelve million people, unofficial - they call other numbers: from thirteen to fifteen million. Experts, in turn, predict that in the coming decades the population of Moscow may even increase to twenty million people.
Moscow is on the list of 25 so-called "global" cities (according to the Foreign Policy magazine). These are the cities that make the most significant contribution to the development of world civilization.
Moscow is not only a significant industrial, political, scientific, educational and financial center of Europe, but also a tourist center. Four objects of the Russian capital are included in the UNESCO heritage list.
Finally...
In total, about 25% of the country's population lives in 15 million-plus cities of Russia. And all these cities continue to attract more and more people.
The largest cities in Russia are, of course, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk. All of them have significant industrial, cultural, as well as scientific and educational potential.