Rostov Region
The Rostov Region is a constituent entity of the Russian Federation that lies in the Southern Federal District.
The area of the region is 100,800 sq km. It includes 463 municipal entities: 12 urban districts, 43 municipal districts, 18 towns and 390 villages.
The region's administrative centre is the city of Rostov-on-Don, a large industrial, cultural and scientific centre, a river port and an important transport hub, with a population of over 1 million people. The other large cities of the region are Taganrog (population of 281,900), Shakhty (254,700), Novocherkassk (184,500), Volgodonsk (172,400) and Novoshakhtinsk (117,600).
The region's total population is over 4.4 million people, over two-thirds of which reside in urban areas. The region ranks fifth in Russia in terms of the size of its population; the population density of the region is 42.5 people per sq km. About 70% of the population are working-age people. The level of education of the economically active population is rather high: 300 people (out of 1,000) have specialized secondary education, 400 people have general secondary education, 87 people have post-primary education, 190 people have higher education and 12 people have incomplete higher education. The annual average number of employed people is 1.75 million, including 1.2 million people engaged in the private sector.
The region's natural resources are coal, natural gas, raw materials used to produce building materials, non-metallic materials used in the metallurgy and coal from the East Donetsk Basin (East Donbass) coal mining region, especially anthracite, which is the world's best coal in terms of its calorific value. Natural gas reserves in the region are estimated at 56.2 billion cu m.
The recreational appeals of the region exist in its local summer resorts with high-quality mineral waters. The region also has the potential to develop international tourism.
