The oblast was established on January 26, 1943, but it has considerably older antecedents. Shors, Teleuts and Siberian Tatars are native peoples of the region. The oldest city in Kemerovo Oblast is Novokuznetsk, founded in 1618, soon after Cossackataman Yermak's push into Siberia. The territory of modern Kemerovo Oblast has been inhabited for several thousand years. In 1618, Kuznetsk fort was established in the south of the future oblast to protect the land from Russian and Mongolian Dzhungarian invaders. During the 19th century, the territory of the modern oblast was a part of Tomsk Governorate.
After the October Revolution of 1917, Kuzbass experienced significant strife as part of the Russian Civil War. A major peasant rebellion took place in the region in early 1921, but was suppressed by the Red Army. In 1930, Kuzbass became part of the West Siberian Krai, and then the Novosibirsk Oblast. Post revolutionary period was characterized by the transition to a planned economy, the creation of the Ural-Kuzbass industrial complex development of the coal, metallurgical and chemical industries Kuzbass Kemerovo Coke built, Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combine, a lot of new mines. Industrial enterprises are being built near the workers' settlements, which quickly became a city: Kiselevsk Osinniki Krasnobrodsky, Tashtagol Kaltan Mezhdurechensk and others. During the Great Patriotic War, Kemerovo region became a major supplier of coal and metal. From Novokuznetsk steel produced over 50,000 tanks and 45,000 aircraft. In Kuzbass from the occupied areas were evacuated equipment 71 enterprises, most of which have remained in the Kuzbass. In January 26, 1943, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet issued a decree, decided to allocate from the Novosibirsk Oblast of Kuzbass and the establishment on its territory of Kemerovo region with administrative center in the city of Kemerovo. In the new Oblast included 17.5% of the Novosibirsk region, 9 of the 12 cities of regional subordination, 17 of the 20 workers' settlements, 23 of the 75 districts. The population of the Kemerovo Oblast was 42% of the total population of the Novosibirsk Oblast. Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed into a mountain range in the Kemerovo Oblast in 1994.
Administrative divisions
Climate
The climate of the oblast is continental: winters are cold and long, summers are warm, but short. The average January temperature ranges from, the average in July is. Average annual precipitation ranges from on the plains and the foothills of up to or more in mountainous areas. The duration of the frost-free period is 100 days in the north area, and up to 120 days in the south of the Kuznetsk Basin.
Economy
Kemerovo Oblast is one of Russia's most important industrial regions, with some of the world's largest deposits of coal. The south of the region is dominated by metallurgy and the mining industry, as well as mechanical engineering and chemical production. The Evraz Group and an ore subsidiary Evrazruda operate iron ore mining and processing facilities along with the Raspadskaya, Yuzhkuzbassugol, the Siberian holding company SIBPLAZ, coal and coking coal mines there. The northern area of the region is more agricultural. The region has a dense railway network, including the Trans-Siberian Railway, which passes through the oblast. Prokopevsk, Kiselevsk, and Andzhero-Sudzhensk are coal-producing centers, and Novokuznetsk is the center of the engineering industry.
Politics
During the Soviet period, the high authority in the oblast was shared between three persons: The first secretary of the Kemerovo CPSU Committee, the chairman of the oblast Soviet, and the Chairman of the oblast Executive Committee. Since 1991, CPSU lost all the power, and the head of the Oblast administration, and eventually the governor was appointed/elected alongside elected regional parliament. The Charter of Kemerovo Oblast is the fundamental law of the region. The Legislative Assembly of Kemerovo 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.
55,899 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
As of a 2012 survey 34.1% of the population of Kemerovo Oblast adheres to the Russian Orthodox Church, 7% declares to be nondenominational Christian, 3% are members of Rodnovery, the Slavic folk religion, 1% are either believers of Orthodox Christianity not belonging to any church or members of other Orthodox churches, 1% are Muslims, 5.9% are followers of other religion or people who did not give an answer to the survey. In addition, 31% of the population declares to be "spiritual but not religious" and 17% to be atheist.
