ABSTRACT
The Republic of Bashkortostan is situated in the Southern Urals. It borders Perm Krai in the north, the Udmurt Republic in the north-west, the Republic of Tatarstan in the west, and with the Oblasts 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. The Republic occupies 142,947 sq km (55,192 sq miles). At January 2016 it had an estimated population of 4,071,064 and a population density of 28.5 per sq km. Some 61.8% of the population lived in urban areas. The Republic’s capital is Ufa, with an estimated population of 1,110,976 in January 2016. Other major cities include Sterlitamak (279,692), Salavat (153,973), Neftekamsk (125,915) and Oktyabrskii (113,626). Of those residents who stated their ethnicity at the 2010 census, 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. Most Bashkirs and Tatars are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school, although some Bashkirs, the Nagaibak, are Orthodox Christians. Bashkortostan is in the time zone GMT+5.
