ABSTRACT
Kemerovo Oblast, known as the Kuzbass, is situated in southern central Russia. Krasnoyarsk Krai and Khakasiya lie to the east, Tomsk Oblast to the north, Novosibirsk Oblast to the west, and Altai Krai and the Republic of Altai to the south-west. The region lies in the Kuznetsk basin, the area surrounding its main river, the Tom. The Oblast occupies 95,725 sq km (36,960 sq miles). At January 2017 its population was an estimated 2,708,844 and the population density 28.3 per sq km. Some 85.8% of the population lived in urban areas. The region’s administrative centre, Kemerovo, had an estimated population of 556,920 in January 2017. The other major cities are Novokuznetsk (with an estimated population of 552,445) and Prokopyevsk (196,406). Of those oblast residents who stated their ethnicity at the 2010 census, 93.7% were Russian and 1.5% were Tatar. Kemerovo Oblast is in the time zone UTC+7.
