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.

From the 11th century, the region of the Ural Mountains was called "stone" by Russians. In the mid-16th – early 17th century, the southern parts became known as Ural, which later spread to the entire area. The name probably originated from Turkic "aral". This word literally means "island" and was used for any territory different from the surrounding terrain. In Bashkortostan there is a 13th-century legend about a hero named Ural. He sacrificed his life for the sake of his people, and they poured a stone pile over his grave, which later turned into the Ural Mountains.

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