Russia - a country with a fairly high level of urbanization.Today in our country there are 15 megacities.Which city in Russia by population in the lead at the present moment?The answer to this question you will find in this fascinating article.
Urbanization and Russia
Urbanization - an achievement or a scourge of our time?It is difficult to answer this question.After all, this process is characterized by the huge contradictions, provoking both positive and negative consequences.
Under this concept broadly understand the growth of the city's role in human life.This process, burst into our lives in the twentieth century, fundamentally changed not only the reality around us, but also the man himself.
Mathematically urbanization - an indicator marking the proportion of the urban population of the country or region.Vysokourbanizovannymi are those countries in which this figure exceeds 65%.In Russia, about 73% of the population lives in cities.List of Russian cities in terms of population can be found below.
It should be noted that the processes of urbanization in Russia were (and are) in two aspects:
- emergence of new cities, covering new areas of the country.
- expansion of existing cities and the formation of large agglomerations.
history of Russian cities
In 1897, within the modern Russia All-Russian population census counted 430 cities.Most of them were small towns, large at the time was only seven.And they were all up to the line of the Ural Mountains.But in Irkutsk - this center of Siberia - there were almost 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 quite 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 has risen to 1087, and the share of the urban population has grown to 73 percent.The number of large cities have increased twenty three times!Today, they are home to almost 50% of the total Russian population.
Thus, it took only a hundred years, and Russia transformed from villages in the state of big cities.
Russia - a country megacities
Russia's largest cities by population distributed across its territory quite unevenly.Most of them are located in the most populated part of the country.Moreover, in Russia the steady tendency to the formation of agglomerations.It was they who formed the skeleton network (socio-economic and cultural) on which are strung the whole settlement system, as well as the country's economy.
850 cities (from 1087) is located within the European Russia and the Urals.By area, it is only 25% of the territory of the state.But in the vast expanses of Siberia and the Far - only 250 cities.This nuance is very difficult process of development of the Asian part of Russia: there is a shortage of large cities are particularly acute.After all, there are huge deposits of minerals.However, to develop them simply nobody.
Russian North also boasts a dense network of major cities.For the region as a characteristic patchy resettlement of the population.The same can be said of the south, where the mountain and foothill regions "survive" a lonely and courageous city daredevils.
So can it be called Russia a country of big cities?Of course.Nevertheless, in this country, with its vast expanses and huge natural resources, there is still a shortage of large cities.
Russia's largest cities by population: TOP 5
As mentioned above, in the territory of Russia, as of 2015 there are 15 megacities.This title is known, received the locality, the number of inhabitants which has exceeded one million.
So, we list the largest city in Russia by population:
- Moscow (12 to 14 million people according to different sources).
- Saint Petersburg (5,130,000 people).
- Novosibirsk (1.54 million).
- Ekaterinburg (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 these cities and more than one million.
If we carefully analyze the rating of Russian cities in terms of population (namely - the upper part), we can see an interesting feature.This is a fairly large gap in the number of residents between the first, second and third line of the rating.
So, in the capital city is home to more than twelve million people in St. Petersburg - about five million.And here is the third largest city in Russia - Novosibirsk - inhabited by only a half million inhabitants.
Moscow - the world's largest metropolis
capital of the Russian Federation, one of the largest cities in the world.How many residents live in Moscow - it is very difficult to say.Official sources speak of twelve million people, informal - called other figures from thirteen to fifteen million.The experts, in turn, predict that in coming decades the population of Moscow can and do rise up to twenty million people.
Moscow included in the list of 25 so-called "global" cities (according to the magazine Foreign Policy).These are the cities that make the most significant contribution to the development of world civilization.
Moscow - is not only an important industrial, political, scientific, educational and financial center of Europe, but also a center of tourism.Four sites of the Russian capital are included in the UNESCO heritage list.
In conclusion ...
total of 15 cities over one million Russian lives about 25% of the population.And all of these cities continue to attract more and more people.
largest largest city of Russia - is, of course, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk.All of them have a significant industrial, cultural, and scientific and educational potential.
