Orenburg Oblast

Orenburg Oblast (Оренбу́ргская о́бласть, Orenburgskaya oblast) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Orenburg. From 1938 to 1957, it bore the name Chkalov Oblast (Чка́ловская о́бласть) in honor of Valery Chkalov. Population: 2,033,072 (2010 Census).

Geography
The most important river of the oblast is the Ural.

Orenburg is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude.

Demographics
Population:


 * Vital statistics for 2012
 * Births: 29 736 (14.7 per 1000)
 * Deaths: 28 225 (13.9 per 1000)

2009 - 1.76 | 2010 - 1.80 | 2011 - 1.80 | 2012 - 1.95 | 2013 - 2.00(e)
 * Total fertility rate: 

According to the 2010 Census, the ethnic composition of the oblast was as follows:
 * Russians: 75.9%
 * Tatars: 7.6%
 * Kazakhs: 6%
 * Ukrainians: 2.5%
 * Bashkirs: 2.3%
 * Mordvinians: 1.9%
 * Germans: 0.6%
 * Chuvash: 0.6%
 * Belarusians: 0.3%
 * Azeris: 0.4%
 * other groups, none more than 0.2% of the population
 * 30,449 people were registered from administrative databases, and could not declare an ethnicity. It is estimated that the proportion of ethnicities in this group is the same as that of the declared group.

Religion
As of a 2012 official survey 40.2% of the population of Orenburg Oblast adheres to the Russian Orthodox Church, 3% declares to be generically Christian (excluding Catholic and Protestant), 2% follows other Orthodox Churches. Muslims constitute 13% of the population. 3% of the population follows Rodnovery (Slavic Paganism), 6.8% follows other religions or did not give an answer to the survey. In addition, 20% of the population declares to be "spiritual but not religious" and 12% to be atheist.

Economy
Orenburg Oblast is one of the major agricultural areas of Russia. Its climate is favorable for farming: humid spring, dry summer and a large number of sunny days make perfect conditions for cultivating hard wheat and rye, sunflowers, potatoes, peas, beans, corn, and gourds.

The range of the oblast's export commodities includes: oil and oil products, gas and gas produced products, rolled ferrous and non-ferrous metals, nickel, asbestos, chromium compounds, rough copper, electric engines, radiators, products of machine-building industry.