The city was founded in 1749 by the Decree of Empress Elizabeth to establish a customs post at the Temernik River estuary. To defend the customs, a fortress named after saint Dimitry of Rostov was built in 1761. On August 17, 1807, the settlements around the fortress were first mentioned as the city of Rostov-on-Don in a Decree by Alexander I.
Rostov-on-Don covers a land area of 354 sq. kilometres with a population of over 1.058 million. The city is located 1,226 km from Moscow at the intersection of transportation routes providing access to the Black, Azov, and Caspian Seas and linking the area to the CIS European regions, the South Caucasus, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. The city's international airport has a capacity of 4.5 billion passenger-kilometres.
Rostov-on-Don is the political, economic, and cultural centre of Southern Russia with a significant industrial, banking, trade, and scientific capacity.
The industrial output of the city's large and medium-sized enterprises alone is 31 billion roubles. Rostov accounts for almost 50% of the region's trade.
The city's largest enterprises include the Rostselmash Combine Harvester Plant which controls 60% of Russia's market, Rostvertol, producing helicopters of various types, Baltika-Don, Don Tobacco, and Yug Rusi, a sunflower seed oil manufacturer.
The city's key industries are the metalworking and metal processing industry (42%), the food industry (32%), the flour-milling industry (7%), light industry (6%), the chemical industry (3%), the construction materials industry (4%), and others. The city's banking sector comprises 80 banks and their affiliates.
In Rostov-on-Don, there are approximately 50 institutions of higher education, 30 colleges and technical schools, 10 lyceums, more than 10 vocational schools, 122 secondary schools, and 250 pre-school education establishments. Cultural venues include the Don State Public Library, the Zoo, the botanical garden, music schools, the Philharmonic Hall, theatres, including two academic theatres, and 4 museums. There are 543 monuments, 57 archeology monuments, and 18 monuments of monumental art of federal significance.