This section is from "The American Cyclopaedia", by George Ripley And Charles A. Dana. Also available from Amazon: The New American Cyclopędia. 16 volumes complete..
An E. Government Of European Russia, bordering on Perm, Orenburg (of which till 1865 it formed the N. W. part), Samara, Kazan, and Viatka; area, 47,031 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 1,364,925. The Ural mountains constitute the E. frontier; the rest of the surface is hilly or level. It is watered by the Bielaya river, a tributary of the Kama, and its numerous affluents, the most important of which is the Ufa. The region of the Bielaya is the most fertile in the Ural mountains.
A City, capital of the government, at the confluence of the Ufa and Bielaya, built on rocks and surrounded by mountains, 200 m. N. by E. of Orenburg; pop. in 1867, 20,166. It is the seat of a Greek bishop and of a Mohammedan mufti, and has an ecclesiastical seminary, a gymnasium, 12 Greek churches, and a mosque. In January a large fair is held, lasting ten days. Ufa was laid out as a fortress toward the close of the 16th century, and was improved after a conflagration in 1816.
 
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