Changes in the Settlement and Urbanization of the Peoples of the USSR as Conditions and Factors of Ethnic Processes

The development of ethnic processes is largely determined by the features of the territorial disposition of the interacting ethnic groups, i.e., features of their settlement, which in this situation serve not only as a characteristic but as a factor in ethnic processes. The previous chapters [of the book from which this excerpt was taken] provided a brief description of the settlement of the peoples of the Soviet Union. Let us now pause to consider certain aspects of this settlement in greater detail, using for this purpose statistical census data processed principally along the lines of territorial-administrative divisions.