 Kurganskaya Oblast is situated to the south of the West Siberian plain (193 m high). In the south and the southeast Kurganskaya Oblast borders upon Kazakhstan, in the southwest and the west - upon Chelyabinskaya Oblast, in the northwest and the north - upon Sverdlovskaya Oblast and in the north and the northeast - on Tyumenskaya Oblast. There are more than 400 rivers and 3 thousand lakes. The main rivers here are the Tobol and its tributary Iset. Such lakes as Gorkoye and Medvezhiye are valued for their health resorts.
The climate is distinctly continental. The average temperature of January is 18 degrees below zero and of July - +19 degrees centigrade. Precipitations make about 400 mm a year.
Nature of Kurganskaya Oblast astonishes at its diversity.The southern areas that earlier were steppe nowadays are almost ploughed up or used as pastures. There are elks, roes, wolves, foxes, badgers, hares, squirrels, etc. Birds are as follows: ducks, geese, ptarmigans and black-cocks. In pond musk-rats can be found.
The oblast was formed on February 6, 1943. Its area is 71 thousand sq. km (0,42 % of the total area of the Russian Federation, 46th in the list). The oblast consists of 24 administrative districts. Here are six urban villages and nine towns. The largest one is the centre of the region - the city of Kurgan. Then go Shadrinsk and Dalmatovo. The majority of population makes the Russians (more than 90 %). Besides here live the Bashkirs, Tatars, Ukrainians and Kazakhs, etc.
Kurgan was founded in 1782. The distance to Moscow is 1973 km. The city is divided into 3 districts: Oktyabrsky, Pervomaysky, Sovetsky. Shadrinsk was founded even earlier - in 1737.
Kurgan village that arose at the border of the Russian state quickly turned into a military fortress designed against attacks of nomads. In the middle of XVIII century it had 3 fortification lines, about a thousand defenders and 28 cannons. The garrison of the fortress was the largest in the Tobol region.
Orthodoxy and Islam have peacefully coexisted here for more than four hundred years now.
Kurgan is a large industrial and cultural centre of Ural. The machine-building industry is basically developed here. Here works the world-famous All-Russian Scientific centre "The regenerative traumatology and orthopedy" named after the academician Ilizarov, its founder.
The Kurgan State University comprises 11 faculties. Besides there are the Agricultural Academy and the Military Institute of the Federal Frontier Service of the Russian Federation.
Kurgan is the twin city of such cities as Rufina (district Florence, Italy) and Appleton (Wisconsin, the USA).
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