The Ivanovo region was early in its history a melting pot between different populations like Russians, Europeans, Asians and others. Various ancient Uralian and ancient Slavic tribes inhabited the area. Ivanovo Industrial Oblast was established on October 1, 1929. On March 11, 1936, a part of it became the modern Ivanovo Oblast while the remainder was split off to create Yaroslavl Oblast. On 21 May 1998 Ivanovo Oblast alongside Amur, Kostroma, Voronezh Oblasts, and the Mari El Republic signed a power-sharing agreement with the federal government, granting it autonomy. This agreement would be abolished on 26 February 2002.
Geography
Ivanovo Oblast shares borders with Kostroma Oblast, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Vladimir Oblast, and Yaroslavl Oblast. Climate of Ivanovo Oblast is continental, with long, cold winters, and short, warm summers. The coldest month is January with average temperature of in the west and in the east. Warmest month is July with average temperature of about.
Politics
During the Soviet period, the high authority in the oblast was shared between three persons: the first secretary of the Ivanovo CPSU Committee, the chairman of the oblast Soviet, and the Chairman of the oblast Executive Committee. Since 1991, CPSU has lost all power, when the head of the oblast administration, and eventually the governor, was appointed/elected alongside an elected regional parliament. The Charter of Ivanovo Oblast is the fundamental law of the region. The Legislative Assembly of Ivanovo Oblast is the province's standing legislative body. The Legislative Assembly exercises its authority by passing laws, resolutions, and other legal acts and by supervising the implementation and observance of the laws and other legal acts passed by it. The highest executive body is the Oblast Government, which includes territorial executive bodies such as district administrations, committees, and commissions that facilitate development and run the day-to-day matters of the province. The Oblast administration supports the activities of the Governor who is the highest official and acts as guarantor of the observance of the oblast Charter in accordance with the Constitution of Russia.
54,882 people were registered from administrative databases, and could not declare an ethnicity. It is estimated that the proportion of ethnicities in this group is the same as that of the declared group.
Religion
According to a 2012 survey 46.5% of the population of Ivanovo Oblast adheres to the Russian Orthodox Church, 8.4% are Orthodox Christian believers who don't belong to church or are members of non-Russian Orthodox churches, 1.8% are unaffiliated generic Christians, 0.5% of the population are adherents of the Slavic native faith movement, and 0.5% are Muslims. In addition, 28.1% of the population declares to be "spiritual but not religious", 12.9% is atheist, and 1.3% follows other religions or did not give an answer to the question.
