SOLIGORSK

city, administrative centre of Soligorsk rayon (sector), Minsk oblast (province), Belarus. The city was established as a consequence of the discovery in 1949 of the potash reserves of the Starobin basin, a geologic formation about 5,400 square miles (14,000 square km) in area and containing some 50,000,000,000 metric tons of the potassium salts. Three processing plants were built to exploit these deposits; they were later unified as the Beloruskaly combine. Other industry in Soligorsk includes the manufacture of precast concrete products. There is a technical college for chemical engineering and mining. Pop. (1991 est.) 96,000.