Kislovodsk is located in the northern foothills of the Great Caucasus at the height of 800-1,069 metres above sea level, 234 km from Stavropol and 50 km from Mineralnye Vody. In 1803 Russia built a military fortress near what they called "The Sour (Kisly) Mineral Water Well" to protect the people who came for medical treatment with mineral waters and therapeutic muds. A little later in 1803 Emperor Alexander I issued a decree on giving Kislovodsk and the rest of the Caucasian Mineral Waters the status of a national spa.
The first attempts to build amenities for the mineral source started in 1804. The first wooden bathhouses were built in eight years, by 1812. Before that, the patients set up a tent camp near the source and took baths in a hole surrounded by a fence of straw and bulrush. The number of visitors in Kislovodsk increased dramatically with the construction of a railway from Mineralnye Vody in 1893. The rapid construction of private houses began at the same time.
Today Kislovodsk is a famous Russian balneotherapy resort, the biggest in the district and second in Russia after Sochi. Kislovodsk accounts for more than a third of resorts in the district of Caucasian Mineral Waters. According to the 2010 census, as of January 1, 2011, 135,200 people, including 128,400 urban residents, live in Kislovodsk and the surrounding administrative area.
The resort with more than 60 spas and hotels is the main part of the economy in Kislovodsk. Half of its population is employed in services for visitors. The Kislovodsk spa with its carbonate mineral waters, climate and landscape typical of medium-high mountains is beneficial for people with circulation, nervous and respiratory disorders, cardiac defects and atherosclerosis.