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Types of settlements in Russia
 
 
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The classification system of the types of inhabited localities in Russia, the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
, and some other post-Soviet states has certain peculiarities compared to the classification systems in other countries.

ng the Soviet
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 times, each of the republics of the Soviet Union
Republics of the Soviet Union

The Republics of the Soviet Union were, according to the Article 76 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, Sovereign Soviet Socialist states that had united with other Soviet Republics to become the Soviet Union....
, including the Russian SFSR, had its own legislative documents dealing with classification of inhabited localities.






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The classification system of the types of inhabited localities in Russia, the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
, and some other post-Soviet states has certain peculiarities compared to the classification systems in other countries.

Modern classification in Russia

During the Soviet
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 times, each of the republics of the Soviet Union
Republics of the Soviet Union

The Republics of the Soviet Union were, according to the Article 76 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, Sovereign Soviet Socialist states that had united with other Soviet Republics to become the Soviet Union....
, including the Russian SFSR, had its own legislative documents dealing with classification of inhabited localities. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union
History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)

The Soviet Union's collapse into independent nations began early in 1985. After years of Soviet Armed Forces buildup at the expense of domestic development, economic growth was at a standstill....
, the task of developing and maintaining such classification in Russia was delegated to the federal subjects
Federal subjects of Russia

Russia is a federation which consists of 83 subjects. These subjects are of equal federal rights in the sense that they have equal representation?two delegates each?in the Federation Council of Russia ....
. While currently there are certain peculiarities to classifications used in many federal subjects, they are all still largely based on the system used in the RSFSR. In all federal subjects, the inhabited localities are classified into two major categories: urban and rural. Further divisions of these categories vary slightly from one federal subject to another, but they all follow common trends described below.

Urban localities

  • Cities
    City

    A city is an urban area with a high population density and a particular administrative, legal, or historical status.Large industrialized cities generally have advanced systems for sanitation, utilities, land usage, house, and transportation and more....
     and town
    Town

    A town is a type of human settlement ranging from a few to several thousand inhabitants, although it may be applied loosely even to huge metropolitan areas; the precise meaning varies between countries and is not always a matter of legal definition....
    s     (gorod; pl. , goroda). Cities and towns are classified by their level of jurisdiction (district
    Raion

    A raion is a type of administrative unit of some post-Soviet states. The term, which is of French origin, describes both a type of a subnational entity and a division of a city, and is almost always translated as "district"....
    /federal subject/federal). While the Russian language
    Russian language

    Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
     has no separate words for "town" and "city" ("" is used for both), in translation, the word "city" is traditionally applied to the urban localities with a population of at least 100,000.


  • Urban-type settlement
    Urban-type settlement

    Urban-type settlement is an official designation for a certain type of urban localities used in some of the countries of the former Soviet Union....
    s     (posyolok gorodskogo tipa; pl. ) is a type of smaller urban locality. This type of urban locality was first introduced in the Soviet Union in 1924, with the following subcategories:
    • Urban-type settlement proper—mostly urban population of 3,000–12,000.
      • Work settlement (rabochy posyolok)—mostly urban population occupied in industrial manufacture.
      • Suburban (dacha) settlement (dachny posyolok)—typically, a suburban settlement with summer dacha
        Dacha

        Dacha is a Russian word for seasonal or year-round second homes located in the exurbs of Soviet and Russian cities. In some cases it is occupied part of the year by its owner or rented out to urban residents as a summer retreat....
        s.
      • Resort settlement (kurortny posyolok)—mostly urban population occupied in beach services.
In 1957, the procedures for categorizing urban-type settlements were further refined.

Rural localities

Multiple types of rural localities exist, some common through the whole territory of Russia, some specific to certain federal subjects. The most common types include:
  • Village
    Village

    A village is a clustered human settlement or Residential community, larger than a hamlet , but smaller than a town or city. Though generally located in rural areas, the term urban village may be applied to certain urban area neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in Beirut, Lebanon....
    s     (derevnya; pl. , derevni)
  • Selo
    Village

    A village is a clustered human settlement or Residential community, larger than a hamlet , but smaller than a town or city. Though generally located in rural areas, the term urban village may be applied to certain urban area neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in Beirut, Lebanon....
    s     (selo; pl. , syola)
  • (Rural-type) settlements (posyolok (selskogo tipa); pl. ). The "rural-type" designation is added to the settlements the population of which is mostly occupied in agriculture, while posyolok proper indicates a mix of population working in agriculture and industry.
  • Stanitsa
    Stanitsa

    Stanitsa is a village inside a Cossacks Cossack host . Stanitsas were the primary unit of Cossack hosts.Historically, the stanitsa was a unit of economic and political organisation of the Cossack peoples primarily in the southern regions of the Russian Empire. Much of the land was held in common by the stanitsa, subject to annual al...
    s     (stanitsa; pl. , stanitsy)—historically, a Cossack
    Cossack

    The term Cossacks is applied to specific militaristic communities of various ethnicities living in the southern steppe regions of Ukraine and Russia....
     rural locality. The name is still currently in use, with the basic meaning of "village".
  • Sloboda
    Sloboda

    Sloboda was a kind of settlement in the history of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The name is derived from the early Slavic word for "Freedom " and may be vaguely translated as "free settlement"....
    s     (sloboda; pl. , slobody)—historically, a settlement freed from taxes and levies for various reasons. The name is still currently in use with the basic meaning of "village".
  • Khutor
    Khutor

    Khutor or hutor is usually taken to refer to a single-smallholding rural settlement of Eastern Europe. The word originated in Ukraine, but later came to be applied to farmsteads in Russia and Kazakhstan....
    s     (khutor; pl. , khutora)—translated as "hamlet
    Hamlet (place)

    A hamlet is usually a rural Human settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community....
    ", "farmstead", or "village".
  • Pochinoks , pochinok; pl. , pochinki)—a newly formed rural locality of one or several families. Pochinoks are established as new settlements and usually grow into larger villages as they develop.
  • In some federal subjects, national terminology is used in the Russian language. Such locality types include (aul
    Aul

    An aul is a type of fortified village found throughout the Caucasus mountains, especially in Dagestan. The auls of Svanetia , with their distinctive medieval towers, have been recognized as a World Heritage Site....
    ), (aal), and (kishlak
    Kishlak

    Kishlak is a rural settlement of semi-nomadis Turkic peoples of Central Asia , in Afghanistan, and in other places. The meaning of the term is "wintering place" in Turkic languages....
    ).


Historical terms

  • Krepost (a fort
    Fortification

    Fortifications are military constructions and buildings designed for defense in warfare and military bases. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs....
    ), a fortified settlement. A Kremlin
    Kremlin

    Kremlin is the Russian word for "fortress", "citadel" or "castle" and refers to any major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities....
    , Russian citadel, is a major krepost usually including a castle and surrounded by posad
    Posad

    A posad was a town, often surrounded by bulwarks and a moat, by a town or a kremlin, but outside the town/kremlin, or by a monastery in the 10th to 15th centuries....
    . Ostrog, on the other hand, was a more primitive kind of krepost which could be put up quickly within rough walls of debarked pointed timber.
  • Posad
    Posad

    A posad was a town, often surrounded by bulwarks and a moat, by a town or a kremlin, but outside the town/kremlin, or by a monastery in the 10th to 15th centuries....
     , a medieval suburban settlement.
  • Mestechko (from ; ), a small town in Western Krai
    Western Krai

    Western Krai was an unofficial name, introduced in 1834 by a historian and journalist Maurycy Mochnacki, of the westernmost parts of the Imperial Russia, but excluding the Congress Poland....
     annexed during the Partitions of Poland
    Partitions of Poland

    The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish?Lithuanian Commonwealth....
    ; typically with Jew
    Jew

    A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
    ish majority.


See also

  • Subdivisions of Russia
    Subdivisions of Russia

    Being the largest country in the world spanning a large percentage of Eurasia, and one of the most populated, Russia is divided into several types and levels of country subdivision from autonomous State to dependent subnational entities of various names....
  • List of terms for country subdivisions