LIVNY, a district town of Russia, in the government of Orel, 87 miles east-south-east of the chief town of the government, at the confluence of the rivers Livenka and Sosna. It has railway connexion with the line between Orel and Gryazi. The town is an important centre for trade in grain, hemp, tallow, skins, and cattle. A large amount of grain is purchased in the neighbouring governments, and the flour is sent to Moscow and the neighbouring towns, as well as to the Baltic ports. Hemp is sent to St Petersburg, and cattle to Moscow, or they are killed for the preparation of tallow. The 13,000 inhabitants of Livny find employment in trade and in the flour-mills, and hemp, tallow-candle, and oil works. The district of Livny is one of the most fertile and populous of central Russia, and is remarkable for its numerous large villages.

Livny was founded in 1586, at the junction of the three highways to Astrakhan, to Little Russia, and to the Crimea, along which the Tartars usually made their inroads on Russian provinces. It was several times destroyed by Tartars during the 16th and 17th centuries. In the great internal wars of the first half of the 16th century, Livny was a centre where all kinds of discontented persons and marauders met. Its fort, or kreml, with thick earthen and wooden walls, existed until 1784.