Moscow is the capital of the Russian Federation, a city of federal significance, the administrative center of the Central Federal District and the center of the Moscow Region, which is not a part of it. The largest city in Russia and Europe by population, the center of the Moscow urban agglomeration. It is one of the ten largest cities in the world.

It is located on the Moscow River in the center of the Eastern European Plain, between the Oka and Volga rivers, approximately at the same latitude as the cities of Ufa, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Copenhagen, and Glasgow.

Moscow is an important tourist center of Russia. The Moscow Kremlin, Red Square, and a number of other cultural and architectural monuments are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. It is also an important transport hub. The city is served by 6 airports, 9 railway stations, 3 river ports (there is a river connection with the seas of the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans basins). Since 1935, the Moscow Metro has been operating in the capital.

The dominant economic activities of the region are:

• trade (wholesale and retail)
• real estate transactions (rent and provision of services)
• manufacturing
• transport and communications
• public administration