The list of cities in the Orenburg region is small. The main city, which is considered to be the regional one, is Orenburg, where 562 thousand inhabitants live, counting for 2016.
What cities are in the Orenburg region?
Currently, the Orenburg region includes 12 cities, in two of which the number exceeds 100 thousand people. In addition to Orenburg, it is also Orsk (231 thousand people).
In the following two cities - Buzuluk and Novotroitsk - less than 100 thousand people live, and make up 85 and 89 thousand people, respectively.
The list of cities in the Orenburg region, where the population is less than 50 thousand people, includes the following settlements: Yasny, Abdulino, Kuvandyk, Mednogorsk, Sol-Iletsk, Sorochinsk, Gai and Buguruslan.
All cities have a different history, some of them were formed in the XVIII century, when they began to populate the steppes and the Urals, and some cities were formed in the last century and have a rather poor history.
Cities of the Orenburg region: list by population
As already mentioned, the largest are Orenburg and Orsk, which appeared in 1743 at the same time. 49 and 35 thousand people reside in Buguruslan and Gaya, respectively. Buguruslan has a rich history, was founded in 1748 and is the administrative center. It was built as a settlement, but in 1781 received the status of a county town.
The list of cities in the Orenburg region with a population of less than 30 and more than 20 thousand is four cities: Kuvandyk, Mednogorsk, Sol-Iletsk, Sorochinsk. The most famous is Sol-Iletsk, which is famous for its salt and mud lakes, where millions of people come annually to treat various diseases. It is also worth noting Mednogorsk, as the industrial center of the region, where there are more than 20 factories. It is one of the most polluted cities, mainly due to the copper-sulfur plant, which emits sulfur dioxide and settles over the soil, forming sulfuric acid. In this regard, the population is declining annually. Once it was 39 thousand inhabitants, and today it is 25.
The smallest cities
Closes the list of cities in the Orenburg region are small population centers, where less than twenty thousand live - Yasny and Abdulino, 15 and 19 thousand people, respectively.
Abdulino is an ancient city, formed in 1795 as a village. Then it was inhabited by 37 people. Only in 1923 the village received the status of a city. Several factories, elevators and mills were built here, and by that time already 15 thousand people lived.
In 1961, when the asbestos deposit was discovered, the city of Yasny appeared, which first had the status of an urban-type settlement, and in 1979 it became a city.