Nizhny Novgorod Oblast
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast (Russian: Нижегоро́дская о́бласть) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). The oblast has an area of 76,900 km², and a population of 3,524,028 (as of 2002 All-Russian Population Census). Its administrative center is the city of Nizhny Novgorod. With a population of 1.3 million, Nizhny Novgorod is the largest city of the region and the 4th largest city of the Russian Federation, after Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Novosibirsk.
The area is crossed by the Volga River. Apart from Nizhny's metropolitan area, the biggest city is Arzamas. In the town of Sarov, there is the largest and holiest convent in Russia. Makaryev Monastery opposite the town of Lyskovo used to be location of the largest fair in Eastern Europe. Other historic towns include Gorodets and Balakhna, located on the Volga to the north from Nizhny Novgorod.
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[edit] Geography
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast borders Kostroma Oblast (N), Kirov Oblast (NE), Mari El (E), Chuvashia (E), Mordovia (S), Ryazan Oblast (SW), Vladimir Oblast (W) and Ivanovo Oblast (NW).
[edit] Time zone
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast is located in the Moscow Time Zone (MSK/MSD). UTC offset is +0300 (MSK)/+0400 (MSD).
[edit] Natural resources
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast is not rich in natural resources, which are, mostly, limited to commercial deposits of sand (including titanium-zirconium sands), clay, gypsum, peat, mineral salt, and timber.
[edit] The sights
The unique architectural construction – the 128 m steel lattice hyperboloid tower built by the Great Russian engineer and scientist Vladimir Grigorievich Shukhov in 1929 is located near the town of Dzerzhinsk on the left bank of the Oka River.
[edit] Administrative divisions
[edit] Demographics
According to the 2002 Census, Ethnic Russians at 3,346,398 made up 95% of the region's population. Other ethnic groups included Tatars (50,609, or 1.4%), Mordva (25,022, or 0.7%), Ukrainians (24,241, or 0.7%), and various smaller groups, each accounting for less than 0.5% of the republic's total population. 758 persons (0.02%) did not indicate their nationalities during the Census.
- Population: 3,524,028 (2002)
- Urban: 2,754,997
- Rural: 769,031
- Male: 1,600,609 (45.4%)
- Female: 1,923,419 (54.6%)
- Females per 1000 males: 1202
- Median age: 39.8
- Urban: 39.1
- Rural: 43.3
- Male: 36.1
- Female: 42.7
- Number of households: 1,362,027 (with 3,465,935 people)
- Urban: 1,051,602 (with 2,720,077 people)
- Rural: 310,425 (with 745,858 people)
[edit] Economy
As Nizhny Novgorod Oblast is not rich in natural resources, the regional economy has been focused on developing its industrial and processing sectors, R&D and transport, which produce almost 80% the Gross Regional Product (GRP).
There are 722 industrial companies in the region, most of them engaged in the following sectors:
- Machine-building and engineering
- Chemical & petrochemical
- Fuel & energy
- Ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy
- Construction materials
- Glass
- Wood and paper
- Cloth-making
- Food & food processing
- Medical & pharmaceuticals
- Printing & publishing.
These key industries are supplemented by other sectors of the economy such as agriculture, trade, services, communications and transport.
According to preliminary estimations, in 2002, the GRP of the Nizhny Novgorod region totaled US$ 5.6 billion, where the industrial and transportation companies produced US$ 4.5 billion. The regional companies demonstrated 6.6% growth in output, which is higher than the national growth in Russia for the last year. In 2002, high growth was registered in machine-building (+13.6%), fuel industry (+49%), ferrous metallurgy (+8.9%), wood & paper production (+2.4%), and printing & publishing (+6.2%). Foreign investment in the region totaled US$84.5 million with 95% of them invested into industrial enterprises. In 2003, the regional government forecast minimum 3.8% growth of industrial output.
