Ural (region)

The Urals (Russian: Ура́л) are a geographical region located around the Ural Mountains, between the East European and West Siberian plains. It extends approximately from north to south, from the Arctic Ocean to the bend of Ural River near Orsk city. The boundary between Europe and Asia runs along the eastern side of the Ural Mountains. Ural mostly lies within Russia but also includes a part of northwestern Kazakhstan. 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 Ural Federal District and the Ural economic region. While the latter follows the historical boundaries, the former is a political product; the District omits Western Urals and includes Western Siberia instead.

The historical center of the Urals is Cherdyn, nowadays it is the small town in Perm Krai. Perm was an administrative center of the gubernia with the same name by 1797. The most territory of historical and modern Ural was included in Perm gubernia. The administrative center of Urals was moved to Sverdlovsk (nowadays Yekaterinburg) after Revolution and Civil war. Nowadays Ural economic region does not have an administrative and informal capital, whereas Yekaterinburg is administrative center of the Ural Federal District.

Idel-Ural

Idel-Ural (Tatar: Cyrillic Идел-Урал, Latin İdel-Ural; Russian: Идель-Урал) is a historical region in Eastern Europe, in what is today Russia. The name literally means Volga-Urals in the Tatar language. The frequently used Russian variant is Volgo-Uralye (Russian: Волго-Уралье). The term Idel-Ural is often used to designate 6 republics of Russia of this region: Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Mari El, Mordovia, Tatarstan, Udmurtia, especially in Tatar-language literature or in the context of minority languages. Idel-Ural is included within the Volga Region (Поволжье, Povolzhye). The major religions in the region are Islam and Orthodox Christianity.

Before being conquered by Tsardom of Russia in the 16th century, the region was dominated by native Uralic tribes and a succession of Turkic empires such as Volga Bulgaria, the Khazars, the Golden Horde and the Khanate of Kazan.

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