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Soviet Union [USSR] Distribution and Density
Because so much of its territory is poorly suited for human
habitation, the Soviet Union on the whole is a sparsely populated
country. In 1987 it registered an average density of twelve
inhabitants per square kilometer. The density varied greatly by
region, however
(see
fig. 9). In the mid-1980s, the density of the
European portion of the Soviet Union was thirty-four inhabitants
per square kilometer, about the same as in the American South. The
republics with the greatest population density were the Moldavian,
Armenian, and Ukrainian republics (see
table 12, Appendix A).
Moskovskaya Oblast, largely because of its historical,
cultural, and political significance and the presence in it of the
Moscow urban metropolitan area, was one of the country's most
thickly settled oblasts. Despite attempts to limit the capital's
growth, Moscow continued to attract numerous migrants each year.
The entire region between the Volga and Oka rivers had a high
concentration of settlements. The most sparsely populated regions
of the country have persistently been in the Far North, which is
considerably more sparsely settled than Alaska.
The "center of gravity" of the population is gradually moving
in a southeasterly direction and in the mid-1980s was located west
of the Urals just below the city of Kuybyshev. The main belt of
settlement forms a wedge whose base is a line going from Leningrad
to the Moldavian Republic. In the European part of the Soviet
Union, its northern boundary runs through the cities of
Cherepovets, Vologda, and Perm'; the southern arm passes through
Kherson, Rostov-na-Donu, Volgograd, and Chelyabinsk. Significant
concentrations of population outside this wedge were found in the
Caucasus and in Central Asia. The roughly 10 percent of the
population in Siberia was concentrated in a rather narrow belt
surrounding the two major transportation arteries of the
Trans-Siberian Railway (see Glossary) and the Baykal-Amur Main Line
(
BAM--see Glossary) and in the energy-producing region of western
Siberia. Future population growth and settlement in Siberia and the
Soviet Far East for the most part was expected to take place in the
environs of the BAM.
The rural population was also concentrated in the southern and
central sections of the European part. Densities of more than 100
persons per square kilometer were found in the Dnestr River Valley
and in several parts of the Ukrainian Republic, the Soviet Union's
traditional breadbasket. Rural population density tapered off in
the taiga zone and sharply diminished in the tundra of the European
north. The arid steppes and semideserts in the southeast European
part were lightly settled.
Starting in the 1970s, an active campaign was mounted to reduce
and consolidate the number of rural populated places in the Soviet
Union. The number of rural places in the nonchernozem region of the
Russian Republic alone declined from 180,000 to 118,000 between
1959 to 1979. Nationally, a reasonable estimate of the numbers of
phased-out ("future-less settlements" in Russian) populated places,
most with fewer than 200 inhabitants, was more than 100,000.
The ninth, tenth, and eleventh five-year plans (1971-85)
provided for stimulating further economic development and
settlement in Siberia and the Soviet Far East. Under Gorbachev,
reports indicated a possible change in emphasis to stress
modernization and intensification of production by using existing
capacity in the European portion.
Data as of May 1989
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