Koryak Okrug (russian: Коря́кский о́круг, Korjakskij okrug; Koryak: , ''Cav’cәvaokrug''), or Koryakia (russian: Корякия, Korjakija), is an administrative division of

Kamchatka Krai Kamchatka Krai ( rus, Камча́тский край, r=Kamchatsky kray, p=kɐmˈtɕatskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subject of Russia (a krai), situated in the Russian Far East, and is administratively part of the Far Eastern Federal District. It ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

. (Federal Constitutional Law #2-FKZ of July 12, 2006 ''On Creation of a New Federal Subject Within the Russian Federation as a Result of the Merger of Kamchatka Oblast and Koryak Autonomous Okrug''. Article 5) It was a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject
of

(an autonomous okrug of Kamchatka Oblast) from 1931Chaussonnet, p. 29 until July 1, 2007, when it merged with Kamchatka Oblast. Prior to the merger, it was called Koryak Autonomous Okrug (). Its

administrative center An administrative center is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune is located. In countries with French as administrative language (such as Belgium, Lu ...

is the urban locality (an

urban-type settlement Urban-type settlementrussian: посёлок городско́го ти́па, translit=posyolok gorodskogo tipa, abbreviated: russian: п.г.т., translit=p.g.t.; ua, селище міського типу, translit=selyshche mis'koho typu, ab ...

) of Palana. Population:

Demographics

As of the 2002 Census,

Koryaks Koryaks () are an indigenous people of the Russian Far East, who live immediately north of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Kamchatka Krai and inhabit the coastlands of the Bering Sea. The cultural borders of the Koryaks include Tigilsk in the south ...

constituted about a quarter of the population. At the time it had the smallest population of all the

federal subjects The federal subjects of Russia, also referred to as the subjects of the Russian Federation (russian: субъекты Российской Федерации, subyekty Rossiyskoy Federatsii) or simply as the subjects of the federation (russian ...

, despite being ranked seventeenth in size, at , encompassing part of the northern half of

Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and w ...

The Soviet Union 1933 CPA 429 stamp (Peoples of the Soviet Union

Vital statistics

Ethnic groups

About 40% of the total population is indigenous, the

being the largest such group. They are, however, outnumbered by the ethnic

Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 '' Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...

2006 earthquake

On April 20, 2006, Kamchatka Peninsula was struck by a major

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

. The 7.7-magnitude tremor had its epicenter near the village of Tilichiki. The Koryakia branch of the Ministry of Emergency Situations said some area residents were injured but there were no fatalities. The quake occurred at about noon local time Friday, so residents were awake and not caught in their beds. The

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

reported a series of at least fifty smaller aftershocks in the area and immediately offshore. They ranged from 4.1 to 6.5 magnitudes on the

Richter scale The Richter scale —also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale—is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 ...

. Bruce Presgrave, a geophysicist with the U.S.G.S. in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

, said the quake was relatively shallow. He estimated that about 2,000 people live close enough to the epicenter to have felt its full force.

References

Notes

Sources

*Chaussonnet, Valerie (1995) ''Native Cultures of Alaska and Siberia. Arctic Studies Center''. Washington, D.C. 112p. {{Use mdy dates, date=March 2013 Former federal subjects of Russia Politics of the Koryak Autonomous Okrug Geography of Kamchatka Krai History of the Kamchatka Peninsula Kamchatka Krai States and territories established in 1931 Russian-speaking countries and territories