ABSTRACT
The Republic of Bashkortostan is situated on the slopes of the Southern Urals. It forms part of the Volga Federal Okrug and the Urals Economic Area. There are borders with Perm Krai to the north, the Udmurt Republic in the north-west, the Republic of Tatarstan in the west, andwith theOblasts of Orenburg in the south, Chelyabinsk in the east and Sverdlovsk to the north. The north of the Republic is forested, while the southern part is steppe. TheRepublic occupies 142,947 sq km (55,192 sqmiles). At the census of October 2010 it had a total population of 4,072,292 and a population density of 28.5 per sq km. At that time some 60.4% of the population lived in urban areas. Of those resident in the Republic who stated their ethnicity, 36.1% were Russian, 29.5% were Bashkir, 25.4% Tatar, 2.7% Chuvash, 2.6% Mari and 1.0% Ukrainian. Bashkir, spoken by the majority of ethnic Bashkirs, is a Kipchak language closely related to Tatar, and has two distinct dialects: Kuvakan, spoken in the north of the Republic; and Yurmatin, current in the south. The majority of Bashkirs and Tatars are SunniMuslims of the Hanafi school, although some Bashkirs, the Nagaibak, are Orthodox Christians. The Republic’s capital is Ufa, with a population of 1,062,300. Other major cities
and Oktyabrskii (109,379). Bashkortostan is in the time zone GMT+6.
