History of Saint Petersburg
Founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703. It became capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1712–1728, 1732–1918). St. Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Demographics of Saint Petersburg
Throughout the three centuries the growth of St. Petersburg was accompanied by an increase in population of its surroundings, while the latter to the city were gradually incorporated into the city limits. From an administrative point of view these suburbs (, literally "by the city") comprised a few uyezds adjacent to the city, holding an intermediate position between the gubernia (presently oblast) as the largest unit in Russia and the city of Petersburg as its center. A known confusion between the "St. Petersburg / Petrograd / Leningrad Uezd" (1727—1914—1924–1927; with a rural population of 56002 according to the census of 1897) and four districts ( or , literally "plots" or "homesteads") referred to as suburbs (of Petershof, of Shlisselburg, of Polyustrovo and of Lesnoi; a total of 191491 inhabitants by 1900) may sometimes lead to a discrepancy between the statistical data taken from different sources, especially considering the fact that a suburban Tsarskoselsky Uezd (population around 150,000 in 1897) was excluded from district statistics.