ORENBURG, a province of the Russian S.F.S.R., consisting mainly of the former Orenburg and Orsk districts of the much larger pre-1914 province of the same name. Area 57,201 sq. km. Pop. (1926) 674,199. It is a narrow strip lying between Bash kiria on the north and Kazakstan on the south, widening out to the east and west. The province is hilly, except for the valleys of the Ural river and its tributaries, the Sakmara and the Or. It belongs to the region of perennial drought and dry and desert steppe : the soils are chestnut-brown clays and sands with salt efflorescences, on which crops can be raised successfully if drought is not too severe and if careful attention is paid to manuring and to the type of cultivation. Some fertile black earth occurs in the valleys. The average January temperature is F. July F, average rainfall 15.2 inches. Coal aria
rich layers of rock salt are found near Iletsk, in the south of the province and phosphorite exists. The peasants are specially skilled in the preparation of leather and the women knit the famous Orenburg goats' wool shawls.
The district lies on the border region between the territory of the Bashkirs and that of the Kirghiz; the Bashkirs were brought under Russian rule in 1557, and the fort of Ufa was built to pro tect them from Kirghiz raids. The frequent risings of the Bash kirs and the raids of the Kirghiz led the Russian government in the i8th century to erect a line of forts and blockhouses on the Ural and Sakmara rivers, which were afterwards extended south westwards towards the Caspian and eastwards towards Omsk, and Orenburg became the central point of these military lines.