Magnitogorsk

Magnitogorsk (Russian: Магнитого́рск, pronounced, lit.'[city] of the magnetic mountain') is an industrial city in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, on the eastern side of the southern Ural Mountains by the Ural River. Its population is currently 410,594 (2021 census).

Magnitogorsk was named after Mount Magnitnaya, a geological anomaly that once consisted almost completely of iron ore, around 55% to 60% iron. It is the second-largest city in Russia that is not the administrative centre of any federal subject or district, after Tolyatti. Magnitogorsk contains the largest iron and steel works in the country: Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. The official motto of the city is "the place where Europe and Asia meet" (Russian: Место, где встречаются Европа и Азия), as the city straddles von Strahlenberg's line.

Magnitogorsk is one of a small number of planned socialist realist settlements established in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War (others including Nowa Huta in Poland, Havířov in Czechoslovakia and Eisenhüttenstadt in the GDR).