The key facts

  • The longest name of a populated place in Russia — 54 characters including quotation marks
  • More than 50 villages and hamlets in the country have two-letter names
  • Among cities, the longest toponym is Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky (25 characters)

A length record and two-letter names

The longest name of a populated place in Russia consists of 54 characters — it is the Settlement of the Central Estate of the Sovkhoz '40 Years of the Great October' in the Zaraisky district of Moscow Region. The press service of Rosreestr provided these figures to RIA Novosti, as reported by Gazeta.Ru. According to the service's explanation, long names are more common among rural settlements, since they were formed from descriptive constructions or compound parts.

Short and one-word record holders

At the other end of the scale are more than 50 villages, hamlets and settlements with two-letter names, which can repeat: Yam appears 12 times, Yar — 11; there are also places such as Yb, Izh, Uk, Ig and others. Among cities, the shortest names consist of three characters: Bor, Okha, Dno, Ufa, Asha, Neya, Shuya, Yuzha and others.

Other records

The only populated place with a hyphen and no spaces in its name is Kremenchug-Konstantinovskoye (25 letters) in the Baksan district of Kabardino-Balkaria. Among one-word names, the leaders are the village of Verkhnenovokutlumbeteyevo (23 letters) in Orenburg Region and the village of Starokozmodemyanovskoye (23 letters) in Tambov Region. The longest urban name is Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky in Sakhalin Region, 25 characters including the hyphen.