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The Republic of Mordovia is located in the centre of the European part of Russia in the basin of the river Volga, at the crossroads of the most important routes from the Ñentre to the Urals, Siberia, the Volga region, Kazakhstan and the Middle Asia.
The territory of the Republic is 26.2 thousand sq. km. The capital of the Republic – Saransk – has population of 295.3 thousand people (01.01.2008). The territory of the Republic extends for approximately 280 km from the west to the east and from 55 up to 140 km – from the north to the south. Distance from Moscow – 642 km. Mordovia is surrounded by large cities and industrial centres – Nizhny Novgorod (330 km far), Kazan (400 km far), Samara (460 km far), Tolgliatti (460 km far), Penza (140 km far), Ryazan (460 km far).
 The attractiveness of the Republic geographical position is significantly increased by well-developed infrastructural potential, special place in it belongs to transport communication. The length of automobile roads is more than 5 thousand km. On the index of automobile roads with hard-top density Mordovia occupies the 24nd place among Russian regions. Operational length of railroads makes more than 1 thousand km. The town of Ruzaevka (25 km far from Saransk) is a large railway junction of the Kuibyshev railroad. An airport is located in Saransk. It is equipped with landing strip of 2801 m. in length and 42 m. in width. The airport is capable to receive air-planes of tonnage up to 100 tons (type TU-154, Boeing-737, etc.). The airport offers comfortable conditions for serving internal and international flights, rendering commercial services in the sphere passengers and cargo transportation; it may be used as dispersal field and provide storage facilities. |
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Mordovia is provided with the whole complex of modern communication facilities. Implementation of up-to-date generation of telephone network ISDN, electronic automatic telephone stations, digital systems for data transmission, Internet access allow the Republic to occupy worthy place among the regions of Russia. Mobile and paging communications are active. The system of telemedicine has been implemented. It allows getting consultations from the leading medical centres of Russia.
The territory has almost entirely gasification of the main industrial zones and settlements.
The population of Mordovia on January 1, 2008 accounted to 840.4 thousand people, 60.0 % of them – town-dwellers. The dominating religion of population is Orthodox Christianity.
State languages are Mordovian (Moksha and Erzya) and Russian. The Mordovian language belongs to the Finnish group of the Ural-Altai family. It is native for 1/3 of the population.
The Republic of Mordovia is one of the most densely populated regions of Central Russia. On the index of population density (32.4 people per 1 sq. m. – 01.01.2008) it occupies the 7rd place after the Chuvashi Republic (70.1 people per 1 sq. m.), the Samara Region (59.3 people per 1 sq. m.), the Republic of Tatarstan (55.4 people per 1 sq. m.), the Nizhni Novgorod Region (44.0 people per 1 sq. m.), the Udmurt Republic (36.6 people per 1 sq. m.) and the Ulyanovsk Region (35.5 people per 1 sq. m.) in the Volga-Vyatka Region. Population density in Mordovia is almost 4 times higher than on average in Russia. |
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Mordovia is a multi-national republic. Mordva, Russians, Tatars, Byelorussians, the Ukrainians, Chuvashi, Udmurti, Armenians and other peoples live in its territory. Sustainable political environment in the Republic as well as national policy are aimed at preserving good-neighbour inter-ethnic relations, development of national culture and traditions of all the peoples, inhabiting the territory of the Republic, in many respects contribute to the existing inter-ethnic consent.
National structure of the population, according to the data of the All-Russian population census is as follows: Mordva – 283.9 thousand people (31.9 %), Russians – 540.7 thousand people (60.8 %), Tatars – 46.3 thousand people (5.2 %), other nationalities – 12.6 thousand people (1.4 %).
The indigenous population – Mordva, is ethnically heterogeneous and consists of the two groups: Erzya and Moksha. Ethnonym “mordva” is for the first time mentioned in the work of the Gothic historian Jordan (VI century A.D.). The country “Mordiya” was familiar to Byzantine Emperor Konstantin Bagryanorodny (X century). Enthonyms “Erzya” (arisu) and “moksha” (moksel) are found in the message of khazar kagan Joseph (X century) and in travel notes of the monk-traveller V. Rubruc (XIII century). Starting with the XI century ethnonym “mordva” in different spelling is repeatedly mentioned in Russian chronicles.
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