Ural (region)

Ural (Russian: Ура́л) is a geographical region around the Ural Mountains, mostly within Russia but also including a part of northwestern Kazakstan. This is a historical, not an official entity, with the boundaries overlapping its western Volga and eastern Siberia neighbor regions. At points in time, parts of the Urals were considered a gateway to Siberia, if not Siberia itself, or were combined with the Volga administrative divisions. At present time, there are two official namesake entities, the Urals Federal District and the Urals economic region. While the latter follows the historical boundaries reasonably well, the former is purely a product of an imposed political will, as the District omits western Urals and includes western Siberia instead. Yekaterinburg is regarded the "capital" of the Urals, with Chelyabinsk a clear second. Perm and Orenburg have been the historical administrative centers, and Ufa the ethnic center.

Current administrative subdivisions and their affiliations