Smolensk area

Geographical location
Smolensk region is one of the western regions of the Russian Federation, situated in the central part of the Russian plain. Area of the region - 49786 square km, that is compared with the territory of such states as Denmark, Switzerland, Holland. Length from west to east - 280 km, from north to south - 250 km. Smolensk region has advantageous geographic position. It is located on the roads from Moscow to Belarus, the Baltic States, states of Central and West Europe. It has boundaries with 5 Russian regions and 2 regions of Belarus. Population - 1147.7 thousand people: in town - 803.3 thousand (70%), in village - 344.4 thousand (30%).
Density of population is 23.1 men/square km.

Administrative division
The region is divided into 25 districts, 7 towns of regional submission, 8 towns of district submission, 17 town settlements, 419 villages.
Centre of the region is the town of Smolensk. It was founded in 862. Distance to Moscow is 419 km.

Economics
The main financial sources are own means of enterprises and organizations. That is 53% of overall volume of investments. By foreign companies $26.6 million were invested into such branches as jewellery industry, metallurgy, communication. Increase of investments is expected in electro-power branch and in transport. The leading trends of economic development are development of agricultural, power-engineering, machine-building complexes, recycling of forest, production of building materials, using local natural resources, development of tourism. One of the factors of development of investment activity is the realization of federal and regional programs. Smolensky region participates in realization of more than 40 federal programs. Important meaning in investment process has development of the highway Moscow-Minsk and building of gas pipeline "Yamal-Europe" (264 km). In the region there is a new catalogue of investment projects, which includes 60 projects, information about free industrial squares, where new productions can be organized.

Science and education
In Smolensk region there are 18 higher educational establishments and its departments, 29 secondary vocational colleges and 36 junior vocational colleges.