City of federal subject significance is an administrative division of a federal subject of Russia which is equal in status to a district but is organized around a large city; occasionally with surrounding rural territories.
[1] This state of the matters is traditionally interpreted by the governments of the federal subjects as a sign that the matters of the administrative-territorial divisions are the sole responsibility of the federal subjects themselves.
[1] As a result, the modern administrative-territorial structures of the federal subjects vary significantly from one federal subject to another; that includes the manner in which the cities of federal subject significance are organized and the choice of a term to refer to such entities.
In the federal subjects which have closed administrative-territorial formations, those are often given a similar status.
Occasionally, this status is also given to the areas organized around the inhabited localities which are not cities, but smaller urban-type settlements.