Bashkortostan, possessing less than 150 thousand square kilometers, is shaped like a triangle, short side north, long side east, and hypotenuse curving convexly west. The geometry is marred, however, on the east side by an irregular indent, reaching nearly to the center. The east consists of the Southern(3) Ural(4) Mountains(5), which rise above 1,500 meters. Western Bashkortostan, particularly in the south is within the Ufa Plateau. It, in turn, is part of the East(6) European(7) Plain(8).
The extreme east is drained by the Ural River, which has its source in the republic's northeast corner, but mostly flows south just beyond the eastern border. The rest of the area consists of the Belaya(9) basin. That river joins the Kama, the Volga's main tributary, in the republic's northwest corner.
Just over four million people live here. More than nine in 20 speak Russian as a first language, although more learn it. Tatar speakers are nearly three in ten and Bashkir ones about three in 20.(10) Either in practice or in cultural background, the majority are Moslem; the rest--mostly Russians--are Russian Orthodox Christians.
Only one city has over a million residents, Ufa, the capital.
The Bashkirs have been in this area for more than a thousand years(11), presumably having moved westward from the Altay(12) area. At that time they were ruled by the Bulgars who, as the Chuvash, persist as a minority in Bashkortostan. The Tatars arrived along with their less numerous overlords, the Mongols, in the 13th century. By the 14th century both groups were mostly Moslem. Prior to conversion they probably shared elements of the old Turkic religion, such as the sacred origins of metallurgy. The Russians established a ruling fortress at Ufa in the 16th century, and were clear hegemons by the end of the 18th.
northwest
northeast
east
southeast, south and southwest
(1) Also called Bashkiriya or Baskirija in transliterated Russian.
(2) Rossiya or Rossija in strictly transliterated Russian.
(3) Yuzhnyy or, with a diacritical on the z, Yuznjy in transliterated Russian.
(4) Uralskiye or Uralskije in transliterated Russian.
(5) Gory in transliterated Russian.
(6) Vostochno in transliterated Russian.
(7) Evropeyskaya in transliterated Russian.
(8) Ravnina in transliterated Russian.
(9) Also transliterated from Russian as Belaja.
(10) One third of ethnic Bashkirs speak Russian as their first language. There is no majority group.
(11) Known originally as Bashqurt.
(12) Also transliterated from Russian as Altaj.