It is one of the few cities in Russia to be larger than the capital or the administrative center of its federal subject in terms of population, economic activity, and tourist traffic.

[9] It was founded in 1594 by order of Tsar Feodor I. Surgut at the end of the 16th century was a small fortress with two gates and five towers, one of which had a carriageway.

The fortification, built of strong wood, was located on the cape, so that it was impossible to approach it unnoticed either from the river or from the land.

At the end of the 18th century, in connection with the development of southern Siberian cities, it lost its administrative significance.

The main occupations of the inhabitants were fishing, gathering of wild plants, trade, cattle breeding, and firewood harvesting.

The women's parochial school also began operation, along with a weather station in 1878, the library-reading room, the people's house, and since 1913, the telegraph.

The management office of OJSC TESS, the largest enterprise of the Urals Federal District, is located in the city.

It operates in the sphere of complex service maintenance, overhaul, and reconstruction of electric power facilities.

In addition, Surgut is home to many factories: gas processing, condensate stabilization, and motor fuel production.

The dairy, meat processing, timber, and building materials industries (mainly for the production of reinforced concrete structures) are also important.

In 2013, the volume of shipped goods, work performed, and services by large and medium-sized producers of industrial products amounted to 100.7 billion rubles.

Through Surgut run trains to the east (in Novy Urengoy, Nizhnevartovsk), and to the south-west (in Tyumen, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Ufa, Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg).

The annual snow cover gets thicker than further east in Siberia due to lesser influence of the Siberian High, and some moisture from the humid European winters reaching across the Ural Mountains.