KEMEROVO

oblast (province), south-central Russia. The oblast lies in the Tom River basin. The north-south valley of the basin is flanked by the Kuznetsk Alatau Mountains on the east and by the lower Salair Ridge on the west. In the south are the low Gornaya Shoriya uplands, on which the headstreams of the Tom rise. The north has steppe vegetation, but most of the oblast is thickly forested with conifers that give way to meadows at higher elevations. The oblast encompasses the rich Kuznetsk Coal Basin, which underlies the entire area between the two flanking ranges, and the heavy industrial region that has developed on the coalfields since the 1930s. Almost nine-tenths of the oblast's population is urban, with the majority engaged in coal mining; the manufacture of iron, steel, and nonferrous metals (principally at Novokuznetsk); heavy engineering and machine building; and the chemical industry. Some iron ore is mined near Temirtau and Tashtagol in the south, as are small quantities of lead, zinc, barites, arsenic, and gold. Timber working is highly developed, especially the production of pit props. Agriculture is significant only in the north of the oblast. Kemerovo city is the provincial centre. Area 36,900 square miles (95,500 square km). Pop. (1993 est.) 3,176,800. city and administrative centre of Kemerovo oblast (province), south-central Russia. Kemerovo lies along the Tom River near the foothills of the Kuznetsk Alatau Mountains. The small village of Kemerovo was founded in the 1830s and merged with the village of Shcheglovo in 1918 to form the city of Shcheglovsk. The city began to grow rapidly with the development of the Kuznetsk Coal Basin, and in 1932 it reverted to the name Kemerovo. Today it is a major coal-mining centre, with pits in and around the city, and it is one of the most important chemical-manufacturing cities in Russia. Its products include nitrogenous fertilizers, plastics, material for synthetic fibres, aniline dyes and paints, caustic soda, ammonia, and pharmaceutical goods. The city's engineering industries manufacture coal-mining equipment and agricultural machinery, and sawmilling and timber working are important. There are mining and teacher-training institutes in the city. Pop. (1993 est.) 517,000.