Yekaterinburg was founded in 1723 as a fortified factory on the River Iset. The new town was located in the central part of the Eurasian landmass, in the Ural Mountains that make up the border between Europe and Asia. The region's economy at that time centered around iron, cast iron and copper.
In 1781 Yekaterinburg was granted the status of district town in the Perm Governorate, and it received a coat of arms in 1783.
In the following decades, Yekaterinburg developed as a major railway hub. The Yekaterinburg - Tyumen - Omsk line, commissioned in 1885, and the Yekaterinburg - Chelyabinsk line, commissioned in 189.6, connected the city to the Siberian Railway, while the Yekaterinburg - Kungur - Perm line, commissioned in 1909, offered a direct route to St. Petersburg. An increasing population and a comprehensive railway network encouraged industrial development.
During the Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Civil War, Yekaterinburg was the seat of the Urals Regional Council, the supreme body of the Soviet government in the Urals. After their arrest, Tsar Nicholas II and his family were taken to Yekaterinburg, where they were executed in mid-July 1918 when anti-Bolshevik forces advanced on the city from the Chelyabinsk and Tyumen area.
In 1923, after the Civil War, Yekaterinburg became the capital city of the Urals Region, which comprised the contemporary Kurgan, Chelyabinsk, Perm, Tyumen and Sverdlovsk Regions. In 1924 Yekaterinburg was renamed Sverdlovsk. On January 17, 1934 the Sverdlovsk Region was formed after the division of the Urals Region.
During the first five-year plans, the city's factories were reconstructed and new ones built, including the Urals Heavy Engineering Plant (1933), Uralelektromashina (1934), the Ural Turbine Works (1939) and others. Sverdlovsk's industrial character was established during this period.
The city saw another industrial transformation during the Great Patriotic War of 1941 to 1945. Over 50 large production facilities were evacuated to Sverdlovsk and formed the basis for the expansion or construction of several factories, including the Ural Chemical Engineering Plant, the Ural Priborostroitelny Plant, the Ural Optical & Mechanical Plant etc.
In the post-war period, engineering and metalworking continued to dominate the city's economy while new factories for the production of consumer good appeared, such as a fat-processing factory, a clothing factory and a concrete slab factory. In December 1991 the city's historical name was restored.
The population of the de facto capital of the Urals was 1,401,729 as of January 1, 2009, with women accounting for 56% and men for 44%. The metropolitan area is 491 square kilometres.
Arkady Chernetsky has been the mayor of Yekaterinburg since January 1992.
In addition to industrial development, present-day Yekaterinburg is the major cultural and educational centre of the Urals. There are some ten professional theatres in Yekaterinburg, including opera, ballet, musical comedy and drama theatres. The city is also home to the only film studio in the Russian East, as well as the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ural Symphony Orchestra, the Ural Folk Instrument Orchestra and the Ural Folk Choir, all of which have received international recognition.
There are also 67 libraries and 13 museums in the city. The Fine Arts Museum, the Museum of Local History, the Museum of Architecture and Industrial Machines, the Museum of Jewelry and Stone Carving Arts and the Geology Museum boast some of the most interesting and richest collections.
Yekaterinburg is one of the so-called historical cities of the Russian Federation. There are about 800 sites of historical, architectural, scientific, technological and artistic interest in Yekaterinburg.
The Botanical Garden operated by the Urals division of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Garden of Therapeutic Plants at the Ural State Forestry University boast unique collections of flora and fauna. The city has over 12,000 hectares of parks and other green spaces.
There are 15 public institutes of higher learning in Yekaterinburg. The most prominent of them are Ural State Technical University (UPI), Ural State University and Ural State Medical Academy. The city is also home to some 140 scientific research, development and design laboratories. Institutes under the Ural division of the Russian Academy of Sciences are active in fields such as mathematics, mechanics, geology, economics, finance, philosophy and law.