Theclassification system of inhabited localities in Russia and some otherpost-Soviet states has certainpeculiarities compared with those in other countries.
During theSoviet time, each of therepublics of the Soviet Union, including theRussian SFSR, had its own legislative documents dealing with classification of inhabited localities.[1] After theDissolution of the Soviet Union, the task of developing and maintaining such classification in Russia was delegated to thefederal subjects.[2] While currently there are certain peculiarities to classifications used in many federal subjects, they are all still largely based on the system used in theRSFSR. In all federal subjects, the inhabited localities are classified into two major categories: urban and rural.[3] Further divisions of these categories vary slightly from one federal subject to another,[2] but they all follow common trends described below.
Cities andtowns (город,gorod; pl.города,goroda). Cities and towns are classified by their level of jurisdiction (district/federal subject/federal). TheRussian language has no separate words for "town" and "city" ("город" is used for both).
Urban-type settlements (посёлок городского типа,posyolok gorodskogo tipa; pl.посёлки городского типа) is a type of smaller urban locality. This type of urban locality was first introduced in the Soviet Union in 1924, with the following subcategories:[4]
Urban-type settlement proper—mostly urban population of 3,000–12,000.
Workers' settlement (рабочий посёлок,rabochy posyolok)—mostly urban population occupied in industrial manufacture.
Suburban (dacha) settlement (дачный посёлок,dachny posyolok)—typically, a suburban settlement with summerdachas.
Resort settlement (курортный посёлок,kurortny posyolok)—mostly urban population occupied in services to holidaymakers (on the seaside or a mineral water spa, or in the mountains for walks and alpine skiing).
Multiple types of rural localities exist, some common through the whole territory of Russia, some specific to certain federal subjects. The most common types include:
Khutor (хутор), small hamlets, only in some federal subjects
Slobodas (слобода,sloboda; pl.слободы,slobody), villages (historically, settlements freed from taxes and levies)
(Rural-type) settlements (посёлок (сельского типа),posyolok (selskogo tipa); pl.посёлки (сельского типа)). The "rural-type" (сельского типа) designation is added to the settlements the population of which is mostly occupied in agriculture, whileposyolok (посёлок) proper indicates a mix of population working in agriculture and industry.
Mestechko (местечко, fromPolish:miasteczko), a small town in theWestern Krai annexed during thepartitions of Poland; typically a mestechko would have aJewish majority and such towns are referred to in English by theYiddish termshtetl
Seltso, a type of rural locality in the Russian Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Pochinok (починок,pochinok; pl.починки,pochinki), a newly formed rural locality of one or several families. Pochinoks were established as new settlements and usually grow into larger villages as they developed.
^In the Russian SFSR, the issues of the administrative and territorial division, including the system of classification of the inhabited localities, was regulated by the StatuteOn Procedure of Resolving the Issues of the Administrative-Territorial Structure of the RSFSR, approved by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR on August 17, 1982 (Положение "О порядке решения вопросос административно-территориального устройства РСФСР", утверждённое Указом Президиума Верховного Совета РСФСР от 17 августа 1982 г.)
^abArticles 71 and 72 of theConstitution of Russia do not name issues of the administrative and territorial structure among the tasks handled on the federal level or jointly with the governments of the federal subjects. As such, all federal subjects passtheir own laws establishing the system of the administrative-territorial divisions on their territories.
^Постановление ВЦИК и СНК РСФСР от 15 сентября 1924 г. "Общее положение о городских и сельских поселениях и посёлках" (Resolution of the All-Union Executive Committee and the Soviet of People's Commissars of September 15, 1924General Statute on Urban and Rural Settlements)
^Указ Президиума ВС РСФСР от 12 сентября 1957 г. "О порядке отнесения населённых пунктов к категории городов, рабочих и курортных посёлков" (Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of September 12, 1957On Procedures of Categorizing the Inhabited Localities as Cities, Work and Resort Settlements)
