The South Ural is the southernmost stretch of the Ural Mountains, where the range tapers down from its rugged northern heights into rolling, forested hills before meeting the Kazakh steppe. The landscape here is a mix of industrial cities, mountain lakes, dense birch and pine forests, and rivers good for rafting.
Chelyabinsk, the regional capital, is the largest city — an industrial centre of over a million people with a surprisingly rich cultural life, including five state theatres and an organ with 2,504 pipes built by the German firm Hermann Eule. Magnitogorsk, further south, is one of Russia's great steel cities. Beyond the cities, the South Ural offers genuine wilderness: hiking in the Taganay and Zyuratkul national parks, lake swimming in summer, and cross-country skiing in the long winters.