Russia's capital, Moscow, was the largest city in the country with over **** million residents as of January 1, 2024. Less than a half of Moscow's population resided in Saint Petersburg, the second-most populous city in the country. The third-largest city, Novosibirsk, was located in the Siberian Federal District, being the highest-populated city in the Asian part of Russia. Why is Moscow so populated? The Russian capital is the center of political, industrial, business, and cultural life in Russia. Despite being one of the most expensive cities worldwide, it continues to attract people from Russia and abroad, with its resident population following a generally upward trend over the past decade. Wages in Moscow are higher than in Russia on average, and more opportunities for employment and investment are available in the capital. Furthermore, the number of people living in Moscow was forecast to continue rising, exceeding **** million by 2035. Urbanization in Russia In 2024, around *** million Russian residents lived in cities. That was approximately three-quarters of the country’s population. The urbanization rate increased steadily over the 20th century, leading to a decline in the rural population. Among the country’s regions, the Northwestern Federal District had the highest share of residents in urban areas, measured at ** percent. In the Central Federal District, the tendency was that more people moved to Moscow and cities in the Moscow Oblast.

Among Russian cities with more than one million inhabitants, the country's capital Moscow received the highest urban environmental quality index score of *** out of 360 points in 2024, based on six criteria and six types of area. The second-leading city in this category was Saint Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, while Kazan ranked third.

1117 Russian cities with city name, region, geographic coordinates and 2020 population estimate.

How to use

from pathlib import Path
import requests
import pandas as pd

url = ("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/"
   "epogrebnyak/ru-cities/main/assets/towns.csv")

# save file locally
p = Path("towns.csv")
if not p.exists():
  content = requests.get(url).text
  p.write_text(content, encoding="utf-8")

# read as dataframe
df = pd.read_csv("towns.csv")
print(df.sample(5))

Files:

• towns.csv - city information
• regions.csv - list of Russian Federation regions
• alt_city_names.json - alternative city names

Сolumns (towns.csv):

Basic info:

• city - city name (several cities have alternative names marked in alt_city_names.json)
• population - city population, thousand people, Rosstat estimate as of 1.1.2020
• lat,lon - city geographic coordinates

Region:

• region_name - subnational region (oblast, republic, krai or AO)
• region_iso_code - ISO 3166 code, eg RU-VLD
• federal_district, eg Центральный

City codes:

• okato
• oktmo
• fias_id
• kladr_id

Data sources

• City list and city population collected from Rosstat publication Регионы России. Основные социально-экономические показатели городов and parsed from publication Microsoft Word files.
• City list corresponds to this Wikipedia article.
• Alternative dataset is wiki-based Dadata city dataset (no population data).

Comments

City groups

• Ханты-Мансийский and Ямало-Ненецкий autonomous regions excluded to avoid duplication as parts of Тюменская область.

• Several notable towns are classified as administrative part of larger cities (Сестрорецк is a municpality at Saint-Petersburg, Щербинка part of Moscow). They are not and not reported in this dataset.

By individual city

• Белоозерский not found in Rosstat publication, but should be considered a city as of 1.1.2020

Alternative city names

• We suppressed letter "ё" city columns in towns.csv - we have Орел, but not Орёл. This affected:

  • Белоозёрский
  • Королёв
  • Ликино-Дулёво
  • Озёры
  • Щёлково
  • Орёл

• Дмитриев and Дмитриев-Льговский are the same city.

assets/alt_city_names.json contains these names.

Tests

poetry install
poetry run python -m pytest

How to replicate dataset

1. Base dataset

Run:

• download data stro rar/get.sh
• convert Саратовская область.doc to docx
• run make.py

Creates:

• _towns.csv
• assets/regions.csv

2. API calls

Note: do not attempt if you do not have to - this runs a while and loads third-party API access.

You have the resulting files in repo, so probably does not need to these scripts.

Run:

• cd geocoding
• run coord_dadata.py (needs token)
• run coord_osm.py

Creates:

• coord_dadata.csv
• coord_osm.csv

3. Merge data

Run:

• run merge.py

Creates:

• assets/towns.csv

Among Russian cities with 100,000 to 250,000 inhabitants, Reutov, located in the Moscow Oblast, received the highest urban environmental quality index score of *** out of 360 points in 2024, based on six criteria and six types of area. The second-leading city in this category was Krasnogorsk.

With a score of *****, Moscow was the leading city for startups in Russia in 2024. Saint Petersburg followed, having earned a score of **** in the period observed. Furthermore, the Russia's capital ranked the major city for startups in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The score was based on several indicators, such as the number of startups in each city, the startups' qualitative results, and the cities' business and economic indicators.

This database provides construction of Large Urban Regions (LUR) in Russia. A Large Urban Region (LUR) can be defined as an aggregation of continuous statistical units around a core that are economically dependent on this core and linked to it by economic and social strong interdependences. The main purpose of this delineation is to make cities comparable on the national and world scales and to make comparative social-economic urban studies. Aggregating different municipal districts around a core city, we construct a single large urban region, which allows to include all the area of economic influence of a core into one statistical unit (see Rogov & Rozenblat, 2020 for more details) thus, changing a city position in a global urban hierarchy. In doing so we use four principal urban concepts (Pumain et al., 1992): political definition, morphological definition, functional definition and conurbation that we call Large Urban Region. We constructed Russian LURs using criteria such as population distribution, road networks, access to an airport, distance from a core, presence of multinational firms. In this database, we provide population data for LURs and their administrative units.

Graph and download economic data for Geographical Outreach: Number of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in 3 Largest Cities for Russian Federation (RUSFCACLNUM) from 2008 to 2015 about ATM, Russia, banks, and depository institutions.

Moscow had the highest public transportation quality index among Russian cities, at around **** points in the third quarter of 2023. It was followed by Saint Petersburg and Perm with approximately **** and **** index points, respectively. The average trip price, comfort, convenience, and public transport network's efficiency were taken into account while comprising indexes for each city.

Among Russian cities with 250,000 to one million inhabitants, Tyumen received the highest urban environmental quality index score of *** out of 360 points in 2024, based on six criteria and six types of area. Ryazan and Yaroslavl followed with scores of *** and *** points, respectively.

The monthly minimum wage in Russia as of January 1, 2025, amounted to ****** Russian rubles, or approximately *** U.S. dollars using the exchange rate as of February 28, 2025. In the capital Moscow, it was set at ****** Russian rubles, or around *** U.S. dollars. In the country's second-largest city, Saint Petersburg, it was lower, at ****** Russian rubles. Since 2021, the minimum wage in Russia has been calculated as 42 percent of the median wage. Between 2018 and 2020, it equaled to the minimum cost of living that was set in the country. The poor and the rich in Russia Around ** million residents lived under the poverty line in Russia. Those earning the highest 20 percent of income accounted for approximately ** percent of the total composite monetary income in 2023, while the group with the lowest income had a ***-percent share. Regional disparities The economic disparity was also observed across Russian federal subjects. The median monthly wage ranged from ****** Russian rubles in the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic to ****** Russian rubles in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug between September 2018 and August 2019. Minimum wage thresholds can be regulated by regional authorities, as long as they are not lower than the federal minimum wage.

In 2025, Moscow was the largest city in Europe with an estimated urban agglomeration of 12.74 million people. The French capital, Paris, was the second largest city in 2025 at 11.35 million, followed by the capitals of the United Kingdom and Spain, with London at 9.84 million and Madrid at 6.81 million people. Istanbul, which would otherwise be the largest city in Europe in 2025, is excluded as it is only partially in Europe, with a sizeable part of its population living in Asia. Europe’s population is almost 750 million Since 1950, the population of Europe has increased by approximately 200 million people, increasing from 550 million to 750 million in these seventy years. Before the turn of the millennium, Europe was the second-most populated continent, before it was overtaken by Africa, which saw its population increase from 228 million in 1950 to 817 million by 2000. Asia has consistently had the largest population of the world’s continents and was estimated to have a population of 4.6 billion. Europe’s largest countries Including its territory in Asia, Russia is by far the largest country in the world, with a territory of around 17 million square kilometers, almost double that of the next largest country, Canada. Within Europe, Russia also has the continent's largest population at 145 million, followed by Germany at 83 million and the United Kingdom at almost 68 million. By contrast, Europe is also home to various micro-states such as San Marino, which has a population of just 30 thousand.

About this dataset

Context

This list ranks the 1 cities in the Major County, OK by Russian population, as estimated by the United States Census Bureau. It also highlights population changes in each city over the past five years.

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates, including:

• 2019-2023 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
• 2014-2018 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
• 2009-2013 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Variables / Data Columns

• Rank by Russian Population: This column displays the rank of city in the Major County, OK by their Russian population, using the most recent ACS data available.
• City: The City for which the rank is shown in the previous column.
• Russian Population: The Russian population of the city is shown in this column.
• % of Total City Population: This shows what percentage of the total city population identifies as Russian. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.
• % of Total Major County Russian Population: This tells us how much of the entire Major County, OK Russian population lives in that city. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.
• 5 Year Rank Trend: This column displays the rank trend across the last 5 years.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Although repression against elites is a common occurrence in authoritarian regimes, we know little about which elites are targeted. This paper uses an original dataset on the prosecution of mayors in large Russian cities to examine the factors that make elites more likely to be arrested. We argue that in electoral authoritarian regimes like Russia, regime leaders are reluctant to arrest popular officials. Such officials command political capital that is useful to the regime, and arrests of prominent officials can produce popular backlash. We examine this argument using an original dataset on all arrests of municipal leaders in Russia's 221 largest cities between 2002 and 2018. We find that mayors who won their elections by large margins are less likely to be arrested. In addition, we document several other substantively important patterns: 1) a mayor's professional background is not related to the likelihood of arrest, 2) opposition mayors are four times more likely to be arrested, and 3) mobilization of votes for the regime is not protective against arrest.

The 2014 Arctic Human Development Report identified “Arctic settlements, cities, and communities” as one of the main gaps in knowledge of the region. This research looks at circumpolar urbanization trends, with a special focus on Russia.

The Russia Office Furniture Market size was valued at USD 2.24 Billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 3.57 Billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 5.17% from 2025 to 2032.

Key Market Drivers:

Growing Commercial Real Estate Development: The expansion of commercial real estate and business centers across major Russian cities is driving significant demand for office furniture and workspace solutions. According to Rosstat (Russian Federal State Statistics Service), commercial real estate development in Russia increased by 15.8% in 2023, with 4.2 million square meters of new office space added across major cities, requiring an estimated $850 million in office furniture investments. The commercial real estate sector in Russia continues to show robust growth, particularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg. New office developments have maintained strong momentum, with occupancy rates averaging 85% in premium locations, driving sustained demand for modern office furnishing solutions. The majority of new developments are adopting contemporary workspace designs.

Large Towns of the Russian Empire, as depicted on the Geographical Atlas of the Russian Empire produced by the Military-Topographical Depot of His Imperial Majesty's General Staff, 1820-1827. Component of the Imperiia Project. Documentation and analysis available here (http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/imperiia/items/show/649)

About this dataset

Context

This list ranks the 473 cities in the California by Russian population, as estimated by the United States Census Bureau. It also highlights population changes in each city over the past five years.

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates, including:

• 2019-2023 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
• 2014-2018 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
• 2009-2013 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Variables / Data Columns

• Rank by Russian Population: This column displays the rank of city in the California by their Russian population, using the most recent ACS data available.
• City: The City for which the rank is shown in the previous column.
• Russian Population: The Russian population of the city is shown in this column.
• % of Total City Population: This shows what percentage of the total city population identifies as Russian. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.
• % of Total California Russian Population: This tells us how much of the entire California Russian population lives in that city. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.
• 5 Year Rank Trend: This column displays the rank trend across the last 5 years.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

About this dataset

Context

This list ranks the 238 cities in the Washington by Russian population, as estimated by the United States Census Bureau. It also highlights population changes in each city over the past five years.

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates, including:

• 2019-2023 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
• 2014-2018 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
• 2009-2013 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Variables / Data Columns

• Rank by Russian Population: This column displays the rank of city in the Washington by their Russian population, using the most recent ACS data available.
• City: The City for which the rank is shown in the previous column.
• Russian Population: The Russian population of the city is shown in this column.
• % of Total City Population: This shows what percentage of the total city population identifies as Russian. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.
• % of Total Washington Russian Population: This tells us how much of the entire Washington Russian population lives in that city. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.
• 5 Year Rank Trend: This column displays the rank trend across the last 5 years.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Viewers aged 65 and older living in cities with over 100,000 inhabitants spent the longest time spent watching television in Russia between September 2023 and August 2024, recorded at six hours and ** minutes per day. To compare, the audience between 12 and 17 years old spent just over an hour in front of a TV set daily.

About this dataset

Context

This list ranks the 80 cities in the Montana by Russian population, as estimated by the United States Census Bureau. It also highlights population changes in each city over the past five years.

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates, including:

• 2019-2023 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
• 2014-2018 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
• 2009-2013 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Variables / Data Columns

• Rank by Russian Population: This column displays the rank of city in the Montana by their Russian population, using the most recent ACS data available.
• City: The City for which the rank is shown in the previous column.
• Russian Population: The Russian population of the city is shown in this column.
• % of Total City Population: This shows what percentage of the total city population identifies as Russian. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.
• % of Total Montana Russian Population: This tells us how much of the entire Montana Russian population lives in that city. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.
• 5 Year Rank Trend: This column displays the rank trend across the last 5 years.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.