POPULATION - Description

Sergei Tarkhov

Russia's total population is 145,924,500 inhabitants as of 1 January 2000. It has fallen by about 2 million in comparison with the census of 1989 (147,386,000).

About 78.6% of the population (114,752,000) live in the European part of Russia. The Asian part holds 31,172,900 people - or 21.4%. The Central (29,361,100 persons), the Ural (20,321,100), the Northern Caucasus (17,676,300,) and the Volga (16,804,900) economic regions are the most populous areas in Russia. The most populated administrative regions of the Russian Federation are: Moscow (8,630,400 inhabitants), Moscow region (6,511,000), Krasnodar krai (5,067,500), St. Petersburg (4,694,000), Sverdlovsk region (4,612,300), Rostov region (4,357,900), Bashkortostan (4,117,100), Tatarstan (3,778,600), Chelyabinsk region (3,672,400), Nizhniy Novgorod region (3,657,700), Samara region (3,297,600), Tyumen' region (3,221,000) and Krasnoyarsk krai (3,038,900 inhabitants). These regions hold about 40% of the entire population (58,656,000 inhabitants).

The average population density of Russia as a whole is 8.5 inhabitants per square kilometer (km2); it is 26.6 persons/km2 in the European part, and 2.4 persons/km2 in the Asian part. The Central (60.4 persons/km2), the North Caucasus (49.5), the Central-Chernozem (46.3) and Northwestern (40.0) economic regions have the highest level of population density in the country. Other places with high population densities are regions with large urban agglomerations (Moscow, 319 inhabitants/km2; Leningrad, 74; Tula, 68; Samara, 62), regions in the west (Kaliningrad, 63 persons/km2), in the southwest (Severnaya Osetiya, 84 persons/km2; Krasnodar krai, 66; Kabardino-Balkariya, 63), and some republics of the Upper Volga region (Chuvashiya, 74 persons/km2 and Tatarstan, 56). Population density decreases gradually from west to east and from south to north.

The highest population density coincides with the concentration of economic activity and occupies an area of about 3,587,500 km2, and covers the territory between St. Petersburg (northwest Russia), Kemerovo (Siberia), Orsk (Southern Ural), and Krasnodar (western part of Northern Caucasus). The population of this territory is about 120,039,500 inhabitants, or 82% of the total population of the country. The average population density within this area is 33.5 inhabitants/km2. Some of the population densities by regions are: the Volga economic region (31 person/km2), Volga-Vyatka region (31); Nizhniy Novgorod (48), the Urals economic region (25), Chelyabinsk region (42), Udmurtiya (39).

There is less population density north of the European part (4 persons/km2) and in Western Siberia (6 persons; although the Kemerovo region is densely populated because of coal and industrial endeavors). Economically undeveloped Eastern Siberia (2.2 persons/km2) and the Far East (1.2 persons) have an extremely low population density. The southern parts of East Siberia and the Far East have a higher population density, e.g., 9 inhabitants/km2 in Khakasiya, 4.6 in the south of Transbaykal, 5.5 in the Jewish region, 7 in Sakhalin Island, and 13 in Primorskiy krai.

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