Khanty-Mansi

Khanty-Mansi, autonomous okrug (district), western Siberia, Russia. The Khanty-Mansi national okrug was established in 1930 for the Khanty (Ostyak) and Mansi (Vogul) peoples, although the majority of the present population are Russian settlers; the national okrug became an autonomous okrug in 1977. In 2003 “Yugra” was officially appended to the okrug’s name in recognition of the district’s historical appellation.

The okrug covers a vast level swampy area in the West Siberian Plain, rising in the far northwest to the Urals crestline, culminating in Mount Narodnaya (6,217 feet [1,895 metres]). The surface is either peat bog and grass marsh or dense swampy forest.

From the 1960s the area was transformed economically, and its population increased rapidly as a result of the discovery and exploitation of huge petroleum and natural-gas deposits along the Ob River, especially near Surgut and Nizhnevartovsk. Khanty-Mansiysk is the administrative centre. Area 202,000 square miles (523,100 square km). Pop. (2010) 1,532,243; (2014 est.) 1,597,248.