ABSTRACT
Yekaterinburg is situated in the centre of the Ural region of the Russian Federation. Its latitude is 56° North. In North America the parallel 56° North passes through Labrador and the Alaskan panhandle and in Britain near to Edinburgh. The city was founded early in the eighteenth century in the newly industrialising iron-making region. Much of the countryside around is forested, winter conditions are harsh, soil is mostly of poor quality and yields in agriculture are low by world standards. The population of Yekaterinburg at the 1989 census was 1,370,000, making it the fifth largest city in the Russian Federation and the tenth largest in the former USSR.
