Urban-type settlement

Urban-type settlement is an official designation for a semi-urban settlement (previously called a "town"), used in several Central and Eastern European countries. The term was primarily used in the Soviet Union and later also for a short time in socialist Bulgaria and socialist Poland. It remains in use today in nine of the post-Soviet states.
The designation was used in all 15 member republics of the Soviet Union from 1922, when it replaced a number of terms that could have been translated by the English term "town" (Russia – posad, Ukraine – , Belarus – (the last two are diminutives from and , correspondingly, similarly to being derived from ) and others). It was introduced later in Poland (1954) and Bulgaria (1964). All the urban-type settlements in Poland were transformed into other types of settlement (town or village) in 1972, in Bulgaria and five of the post-Soviet republics (Armenia, Moldova, and the three Baltic states), they were changed in the early 1990s, while in Ukraine in 2023. Today, this term is still used in the other nine post-Soviet republics – Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. It is also used in Transnistria, an unrecognised breakaway state in Moldova.
What counts as an urban-type settlement differs between time periods and countries and often between different divisions of a single country. However, the criteria generally focus on the presence of urban infrastructure or resort facilities for urban residents.
Soviet Union
In the Soviet Union, the criteria of urban-type settlements were set independently by the Soviet republics. Those criteria, however, only differed very slightly from one republic to another.
Russian SFSR
In the Russian SFSR, urban-type settlements were subdivided into three types:
Work settlements: localities with factories, mining industry, power stations, construction industry, with population of at least 3,000 and with at least 85% of the population being workers, professionals, and the members of their families;
Resort settlements: localities focusing on resort and health facilities (around beaches, mineral water spas, etc.), with population of at least 2,000, with at least 50% of the average annual population being non-permanent residents;
Suburban settlements (dacha settlements): settlements with a focus on private summer-time and weekend recreation, with no more than 25% of the permanent population being employed in the agricultural sector.
Ukrainian SSR
In 1981, the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR defined an urban-type settlement as follows:
"To the category of an urban-type settlement may be included any settlement located near industrial enterprises, buildings, railroad connections, hydro-technical constructions, and enterprises in production and refining of agrarian products as well as settlements that include higher or middle occupation educational establishments, science-researching institutions, sanatoria, and other stationary treatment and recreation establishments that have a state housing provided to no less than 2,000 inhabitants out of which no less than two-thirds consist of workers, servicemen, and their families.
In exceptional cases, settlements could be classified to the category of urban-type settlements if they had a population less than 2,000, but more than 500; this happened when they had a close perspective of an economic and social development or a potential increase in number of people.
The term was introduced in Ukraine in 1920s and became official since the resolution of the Central Executive Committee of Ukraine of October 28, 1925 replacing all towns (mistechko) as urban-type settlement.
Modern usage
Azerbaijan
As of 2011, there were 256 urban-type settlements in Azerbaijan.
Belarus
According to a 1998 law of Belarus, there are three categories of urban-type settlement in the country:
Urban settlements: with population over 2,000, industrial enterprises and developed residential infrastructure.
Resort settlements: with population of at least 2,000, sanatoriums, resorts or other health recuperation establishments, and developed residential infrastructure.
Worker settlements: with population at least 500, servicing industrial enterprises, construction sites, railroad stations, electric stations, or other industrial objects.
Georgia
As of 2014, there were 47 urban-type settlements in Georgia. Eight of them are located on the territory of the partially recognized states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and are de facto not under the control of the Georgian government.
Kazakhstan
As of 2019, there were 48 urban-type settlements in Kazakhstan.
Kyrgyzstan
In accordance with the 2008 Law on Administrative and Territorial Subdivision of Kyrgyzstan, urban-type settlements are those that comprise economically significant facilities such as industrial plants, railway stations, construction sites, etc., as well as settlements with a recreational potential with population of at least 2,000. In exceptional cases, administrative, economic and cultural centers with a potential of economical development and population growth can be classified as urban-type settlements.
Russia
Inhabited localities
In modern Russia, the task of deciding whether an inhabited locality meets the criteria of urban-type settlements is delegated to the federal subjects. In most cases, the federal subject's legislative body is responsible for all administrative and territorial changes, including granting and revoking of the urban-type settlement and town status.
Administrative divisions
Apart from being used to refer to a type of inhabited locality, the term "urban-type settlement" and its variations is also used to refer to a division of an administrative district, and sometimes to a division administratively subordinated to a city district of a city of federal subject significance. This kind of administrative division is equal in status to the towns of district significance and selsoviets, and is normally centered on an inhabited locality with urban-type settlement status. As of 2013, the following types of such entities are recognized:
Resort settlement: in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast
Settlement: in the Republic of Dagestan and the Sakha Republic; in Krasnoyarsk and Stavropol Krais
Settlement administration: in Altai Krai
Settlement administrative okrug: in Bryansk Oblast
Settlement council: in the Republic of Bashkortostan and the Udmurt Republic; in Altai Krai; in Tambov Oblast
Settlement municipal formation: in Leningrad Oblast
Settlement okrug: in Krasnodar Krai; in Belgorod and Ulyanovsk Oblasts
Suburban settlement: in Moscow and Omsk Oblasts
Urban settlement: in the Chuvash Republic; in Amur, Rostov, Smolensk, Tver, and Voronezh Oblasts
Urban settlement (urban-type settlement): in Kostroma Oblast
Urban-type settlement: in the Republic of Buryatia, the Chechen Republic, the Mari El Republic, and the Republic of Tatarstan; in Astrakhan, Kemerovo, Kirov, Murmansk, Nizhny Novgorod, Oryol, Sakhalin, Tula, Volgograd, and Vologda Oblasts
Urban-type settlement administrative territory: in the Komi Republic
Urban-type settlement of district significance: in Kaliningrad Oblast and Nenets Autonomous Okrug
Urban-type settlement (settlement council): in the Republic of Khakassia
Urban-type settlement under district jurisdiction: in Kurgan Oblast
Urban-type settlement (urban settlement): in the Tuva Republic
Urban-type settlement with jurisdictional territory: in Arkhangelsk Oblast
Work settlement: in the Republic of Mordovia; in Krasnoyarsk Krai; in Belgorod, Chelyabinsk, Kursk, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Penza, Ryazan, and Yaroslavl Oblasts
Tajikistan
As of January 1, 2018, there were 57 urban-type settlements in Tajikistan.
Turkmenistan
As of February 1, 2016, there were 76 urban-type settlements in Turkmenistan.
Uzbekistan
As of January 1, 2011, 1,065 settlements have urban-type settlement status in Uzbekistan.
Former usage
Armenia
Urban-type settlements existed in Armenia until the 1990s. Currently, all of them have been converted into cities or villages.
Baltic states
In Estonia, the urban-type settlements were created in 1945 during the Estonian SSR. In the 1990s most of them were transformed into cities.
The urban-type settlements existed in Latvia from 1949 to 1993, when they were converted into cities and rural settlements.
Lithuania formerly used the urban-type settlement (Lithuanian: miesto tipo gyvenvietė, m.t.g.) system until 1995.
Bulgaria
In Bulgaria, the first urban-type settlements (Bulgarian: селище от градски тип) were formed in 1964. In the 1990s they were transformed into villages and cities.
Moldova
The urban-type settlement system was used on the territory of Moldova since 1924. In the 1990s they were converted either into cities or rural settlements. The disputed and unrecognized Transnistria continues to use this system.
Poland
The urban-type settlements (Polish: osiedle typu miejskiego) were used in the Polish People's Republic from 1954 to 1972. Nowadays, Poland has cities, villages and settlements.
Ukraine
Ukraine formerly used the urban-type settlement (Ukrainian: селище міського типу, с.м.т.) system until 2023.
In 1991 there were 921 urban-type settlements in Ukraine.
On 24 October 2023 President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed Law No. 8263 that abolished the concept of "urban-type settlement" in Ukraine. Law No. 8263 was meant to facilitate "de-Sovietization of the procedure for solving certain issues of the administrative and territorial system of Ukraine".
See also
Administrative divisions of Georgia (country)
Political divisions of Russia
Regions of Belarus
Subdivisions of Kyrgyzstan
Notes
References
Types of towns
People's Republic of Bulgaria
Polish People's Republic
Urban geography
Soviet phraseology