TULA, (I) a province of the Russian S.F.S.R., surrounded by those of Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Tambov and Orel, and not coinciding with the pre-1917 province of the same name. Area 24,574 sq.km. Pop. (1926) 1,499,428, mainly Great Russians. It consists of plateau land (95o to 1,020 ft.), deeply entrenched by the Don and its tributaries, the Upa and Sosna. About 9% is forested, the northern region having coniferous trees, and the south small and scattered patches of birch, ash and oak. The south is in the steppe black earth region, where agriculture gives a good guarantee to the peasant, but the north is poorer grey forest soil. There is little good pasture and dairying is not much developed, though sheep, working and milch cattle, horses, pigs and goats are bred to some extent. The climate is extreme, with five months' winter frost, an average July temperature of 66° F and 16-18 in. of rain per annum.
The chief crops are rye (48.2%), and oats (28.3%). Buck wheat, potatoes, wheat, millet, grass, hemp and sugar beet are grown, while along the Oka in the north-west of the province, apples, cucumbers, cabbages and onions are cultivated. Peat working is not profitable and the electric stations at Aleksin and Epifan use the local coal. This is mined along the railway ex tending eastwards from Aleksin on the Oka through Tula to the province of Ryazan. The better agricultural conditions lessen
the role of koustar (peasant) industries, which here consist mainly of the manufacture of small metal goods, especially samovars and wooden wares.
(2) Tula is also the name of the chief town of the above province, situated in the broad but low, marshy and unhealthy valley of the Upa, in 54° 12' N. 37' E. Pop. (I933) c. 199,50o. Tsar Boris Godunov founded the first Russian gun factory here in 1595, and in 1632 a Dutchman, Winius, estab lished an iron factory. The factories were rebuilt on a larger scale in 1705 and 1714 and towards the end of the i8th cen tury a marked expansion of the industry took place. The making of rifles is still the main occupation of the town, other indus tries being the manufacture of samovars (tea urns), sugar re fining, smelting, the making of cutlery, leather and sewn goods and flour-milling. The town is first mentioned in 1147, but its former site seems to have been higher up the Tulitsa, an affluent of the Upa. Its wooden fort was replaced in 1514-21 by a stone kreml or citadel, which still exists.