About 7,123,610 acres (more than 46 per cent, of the surface) are arable, upwards of 1,324,900 acres (over 8 per cent.) are meadow land, and 5,190,960 acres (nearly 34 per cent.) are under forest. Rye and oats form the principal crops; barley, wheat, buckwheat, and potatoes are also grown. In 1879 the official returns gave 1,048,092 as the number of sheep in the government, and of these 13,748 were of fine woolled breeds; the horned cattle amounted to 359,362, the horses to 426,564, the swine to 192,190, and the goats to 45,822. No fewer than 8066 persons were engaged in beekeeping, and the produce of this department was valued at £29,945. Industrial activity is on the increase; the number of the smaller manufacturing establishments is diminishing, but those which remain (272 in 1879, employing 8399 hands) are greatly increasing in production. The total value of their manufacture in 1879 was £2,034,137. Apart from the regular factories, there is a large industrial activity. The weaving and dyeing of linen and hemp goods gave employment in 1879 to 13,485 men; wool-combing, &c., to 3428; flour and malt making to 3680, and the forest industries, wood-cutting, tar-boiling, &c., to 10,423. The aggregate commerce of the towns is estimated at £3,695,000. Of the seventy-six annual fairs, the chief are the timber fair of Kozmodemyansk, and those of Tchistopol and Tcheboksarui. Administratively Kazan is divided into twelve districts :—Kazan, Sviyazhsk, Tcheboksarui, Tsivilsk, Yadrin, Kozmodemyansk, Tsarevokokshaisk, Mamaduish, Tchistopol, Laisheff, Spassk, Tetyushi. Besides the city of Kazan, the following are the largest towns :—Tchistopol (20,293 inhabitants in 1879), Laisheff (5098), Tcheboksarui (4560), Kozmodemyansk (4508), Mamaduish (4068). The total population of the government in 1879 was 1,872,437 (194,343 in the towns, 1,678,094 in the country districts). The males in the former case numbered 109,915, and the females 84,428; and in the latter the males 820,144, and females 857,950. An increase of 267,732 has taken place since 1862. More than half of the inhabitants are of non-SIavonic origin; and the Mohammedans number over half a million.

The formation of the Kazan government dates from the year 1708; at first it contaiued a large portion of south-eastern Russia, but in 1781 the present limits were determined. The division into twelve districts was made in 1802.

Kazan, chief town of the above government, is situated in 55° 48' N. lat. and 49° 26' E. long., 528 miles east of Moscow and 970 miles from St Petersburg. The summer course of the Volga lies several miles to the south-west, and is gradually increasing its distance; but when the river is at its height in spring the intervening space is laid under water, and the steamers, which at other times stop at the mouth of the Kazanka, are able to approach the town. Though the hill on which the citadel stands is only about 40 feet high, it forms a striking relief to the level country in front. Contrary to what might be expected from its history, the town is almost completely destitute of Oriental colouring; but the number and brightness of the Greek churches helps to relieve the general air of modern and commonplace regularity. The cathedral of the Annunciation was founded in 1562 by Gury, the first bishop of the diocese of Kazan; and the Bogoroditskii convent was erected in 1579 for the reception of the “Black Virgin of Kazan,” which was removed in 1821 to the famous Kazan cathedral in St Petersburg. Of pre-Russian buildings there is hardly a trace; the red brick Sumbek tower, 245 feet high, is an object of great veneration to the Tartars, who consider it as the burial-place of one of their saints; but its similarity to the towers of Moscow proves its Muscovite origin. As an intellectual centre Kazan is the most important city of eastern Russia in Europe. The gymnasium, founded in 1750, was the third national institution for secondary education established in the empire; and the university, which dates from 1801, has become a great seat of Oriental scholarship. It has four faculties, with fifty-six teachers and about seven hundred students. The library contains about 85,000 volumes; but the most valuable part of its manu · script collection has been removed to St Petersburg. There is an astronomical observatory; and from the university press are issued a learned journal (L·vyestiya i Zapiskx) and a very considerable number of works, especially in Oriental philology. The ecclesiastical academy founded in 1846 contains the old library of the Solovki monastery, of importance for the history of Russian sects. Schools are maintained by the Tartar population, which still occupies some of the suburbs; and Tartar text-books (by Radloff) after the European type have been introduced. As a seat of commerce and industry Kazan holds a respectable place. Its leather goods, especially those of the finer qualities, are in repute; and it also manufactures alcohol, flour, cotton and hemp goods, starch, stearine, tallow, and albumen. The trade connexion of the Tartar merchants more particularly is a very extensive and important one. The population of the town, which was 63,084 in 1863, had increased in 1879 to 134,434, of whom 13,635 are Tartars.

The present government of Kazan was the centre of a great Bulgarian kingdom, the first historical monarchy of north-eastern Russia. On the ruins of this kingdom the Mongolian (Tartar) “kingdom of Kazan” was founded in the 15th century by Ulu-Mahmet, whose descendants continued to rule till the destruction of their city by Ivan the Terrible iu 1552. Of the town of Kazan the early notices are of doubtful interpretation; but according to S. Μ. Shpilevski the Kazan mentioned in 1376 must be Bulgar (the present Bolgarui in the district of Spassk), the “Great Town” of the Bulgarians, the ruins of which are among the most notable in the Kazan region; and the Kazan of even some of the later chronicles is to be identified with Koshan on the Kama. Nor is the present the original of Kazan proper; on the banks of the Kazanka are extensive remains of Iski (Tartar for “Old") Kazan, near a modern village of the same name. Kazan was laid waste by Pugatchcff, and the conflagrations of 1815 and 1825 were especially destructive. During the French invasion the Moscow university took asylum in the town.

The name of Kazan Tartars is given, not only to those of the government of Kazan, but to those of Ufa, Samara, Vyatka, Saratoff, Penza, Nizhni Novgorod, Orenburg, and Tamboff. In 1870 they amounted altogether to 1,050,000. In many ways they differ considerably from those of Astrakhan, the Crimea, &c. They have pretty certainly incorporated a good deal of Bulgarian blood.

The history of Kazan has been written by Turnerelli (1841), Lepteff, Kurbski, and others. The evidence of Arabic, Tartar, and Russian writers in regard to the antiquities of town and government has been collected by Shpilevski (Izv. i Zap. Imp. Kaz. Un., 1877, pp. 1-585). A bibliography of the Oriental books published in the town is given in the Bull, of the St Petersburg Academy, 1867. Compare Louis Leger, “Kazan et les Tartares,” in Bibl. Univ, de Genève, 1874.