Saint Petersburg
is a city located in northwestern Russia on the delta
of the Neva River at the east end of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea.
It is informally known as Piterand was formerly known as Petrograd and
Leningrad (
Founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 16(27), 1703 as a “window to Europe,”
it served as the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred
years. St. Petersburg ceased being the capital when the capital was moved to
Moscow after the Russian Revolution of 1917. With about 4.7 million
inhabitants (2002), today Saint Petersburg is Russia's second-largest city,
Europe's fourth largest city, a major European cultural center, and the most
important Russian port on the Baltic. The city has a total area of 1439
square km, which makes it the second biggest city in terms of area among
cities with over a million inhabitants in Europe, after London. It is 2
times bigger than New York City and 13 times bigger than Paris.
Among cities of the world having populations of over one million people,
Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The city center is a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. For over 200 years Russia's political and cultural center,
the city is impressive even today, and is sometimes called "the Northern
Capital" . It is the administrative center of Leningrad Oblast (itself a
separate region) and of the Northwestern Federal District.
source:wikipedia
