Town of district significance

Town of district significance is an umbrella term used to refer to a type of an administrative division of a district in a federal subject of Russia, which is equal in status to a selsoviet or an urban-type settlement of district significance, but is organized around a town (as opposed to a rural locality or an urban-type settlement); often with surrounding rural territories.

Prior to the adoption of the 1993 Constitution of Russia, this type of administrative division was defined on the whole territory of the Russian SFSR as an inhabited locality which serves as a cultural and an industrial center of a district and has a population of at least 12,000, of which at least 80% are workers, public servants, and the members of their families.^[1] After the adoption of the 1993 Constitution, the administrative-territorial structure of the federal subjects is no longer identified as the responsibility of the federal government or as the joint responsibility of the federal government and the federal subjects.^[2] This state of the matters is traditionally interpreted by the governments of the federal subjects as a sign that the matters of the administrative-territorial divisions are the sole responsibility of the federal subjects themselves.^[2] As a result, the modern administrative-territorial structures of the federal subjects vary significantly from one federal subject to another; that includes the manner in which the towns of district significance are organized and the choice of a term to refer to such entities.

As of 2011, the following types of such entities are recognized:

• District town (районный город): in Krasnoyarsk Krai
• Settlement municipal formation (муниципальное образование со статусом поселения): in Leningrad Oblast
• Town (город): in the Republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia; in Krasnodar and Stavropol Krais; in Chelyabinsk, Kirov, Moscow, Murmansk, and Novosibirsk Oblasts
• Town of district significance (город районного значения): in the Mari El Republic, the Republic of Mordovia, the Sakha Republic, the Republic of Tatarstan, and the Udmurt Republic; in Altai Krai; in Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Bryansk, Kaliningrad, Kemerovo, Kostroma, Kursk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod, Oryol, Penza, Ryazan, Tambov, Ulyanovsk, Volgograd, Vologda, and Yaroslavl Oblasts
• Town of district significance administrative territory (административная территория – город районного значения): in the Komi Republic
• Town under district jurisdiction (город районного подчинения): in the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania; in Kurgan, Lipetsk, and Tula Oblasts
• Town under district jurisdiction (urban settlement) (город кожуунного подчинения (городское поселение): in the Tyva Republic
• Urban settlement (городское поселение): in the Chuvash Republic and the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania; in Amur, Rostov, Smolensk, and Voronezh Oblasts

References

1. ^ Иванец Г.И., Калинский И.В., Червонюк В.И. Конституционное право России: энциклопедический словарь / Под общей ред. В.И. Червонюка. — М.: Юрид. лит., 2002. — 432 с. Статья "Город районного значения"
2. ^ ^{a b} "Энциклопедический словарь конституционного права". Статья "Административно-территориальное устройство". Сост. А. А. Избранов. — Мн.: Изд. В.М. Суров, 2001.