Yelninsky District
human settlement in Russia

Yelninsky District (Russian: Ельнинский райо́н) is an administrative and municipal district (raion), one of the twenty-five in Smolensk Oblast, Russia. It is located in the southeast of the oblast and borders with Dorogobuzhsky District in the north, Ugransky District in the east, Spas-Demensky District of Kaluga Oblast in the southeast, Roslavlsky District in the south, Pochinkovsky District in the west, and with Glinkovsky District in the northwest. The area of the district is 1,808.15 square kilometers (698.13 sq mi). Its administrative center is the town of Yelnya. Population: 14,948 (2010 Census); 17,457 (2002 census); 19,699 (1989 Soviet census). The population of Yelnya accounts for 67.5% of the district's total population.
Geography
The district is located on the Smolensk Upland and is divided between the drainage basins of the Dnieper and the Volga. The rivers in the southwestern part of the district drain into the Desna River, a major left tributary of the Dnieper. The Desna has its source within the area of the district, and the town of Yelnya is located on the banks of the Desna. The northern part of the district belongs to the drainage basin of the Uzha River, another left tributary of the Dnieper, which also has its source within the district.
“Yelninsky District” enters the record as human settlement in Russia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Yelninsky, District and human can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2427629. VIAF identifies the subject as 135044805. The Library of Congress control number is n97090556. Authority coordinates are 54.567, 33.167. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010, 2002 and 1989.
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This entry incorporates text from “Yelninsky District” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.