Yekaterinburg (also romanized Ekaterinburg) is the fourth-largest city in Russia with a population of 1,398,889 (2012). Yekaterinburg is situated in the middle of the Eurasian continent, on the border of Europe and Asia.
Yekaterinburg is the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast and the main industrial and cultural center of the Ural Federal District. Between 1924 and 1991, the city was named Sverdlovsk after the Communist party leader Yakov Sverdlov.
Internationally, Yekaterinburg is best known as a city where the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family were executed in 1918