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. The Republic occupies 142,947 sq km (55,192 sq miles). At January 2012 it had an estimated population of 4,064,245 and a population density of 28.4 per sq km. Some 60.8% of the population lived in urban areas. The Republic’s capital is Ufa, with an estimated population of 1,072,291. Other major cities include Sterlitamak (274,382), Salavat (155,464), Neftekamsk (122,844) and Oktyabrskii (110,667). Of those resident in the Republic 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; andYurmatin, current in the south. Themajority of
Bashkirs, the Nagaibak, are Orthodox Christians. Bashkortostan is in the time zone GMT+6.
