CARTOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE ORENBURG PROVINCE BORDERS
In 2014 we celebrated 280th anniversary of the Orenburg expedition under the supervision of I. K. Kirilov (1734), 270th anniversary of the Orenburg province (1744) and 80th anniversary of the Orenburg Oblast (1934). The article describes how its administrative borders changed; the author performed a cartographic analysis of the region’s administrative and territorial structure evolution; described the results of a cartographic reconstruction of its administrative borders over its 270 years history with the use of modern geo-information technologies (GIS MapInfo). Even though the immediate participants and initiators of the Orenburg province reorganization were well aware of the need to follow the principle of historicism, taking into account the cultural and historical specifics and traditions of the Ural Caspian steppe region, and its geography; nonetheless, it was quite obvious that their priorities were the administrative tasks of improving the territory’s management, ethnic and religious distinctions, as well as a messianic goal to foster the “Russian business development” on the south-eastern borders of Russia. The unusual shape of today’s borders of the Orenburg Oblast is a product of the desire of the young Soviet state leadership to draw administrative and territorial borders in the region following the dominant population’s ethnicity principle. The “cartographic picture” of the Orenburg province changed repeatedly, however the modern administrative division still maintains visible traces of the region’s reorganizations over its three centuries history. The issues of the change of administrative and territorial division of the region are still relevant even today.