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Semipalatinsk Test Site

Nuclear testing venue for the Soviet Union in northeast Kazakhstan

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 9, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The Semipalatinsk Test Site or Semipalatinsk-21, also known as "The Polygon", was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons. It is located in Zhanasemey District, Abai Region, Kazakhstan, south of the valley of the Irtysh River. The test site was part of the former Kazakh SSR. The scientific buildings for the test site were located around 150 km (93 mi) west of the town of Semipalatinsk, later renamed Semey, near the border of East Kazakhstan Region and Pavlodar Region. Most of the nuclear tests took place at various sites further to the west and the south, some as far as into Karagandy Region.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Semipalatinsk Test Site” is nuclear testing venue for the Soviet Union in northeast Kazakhstan. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Semipalatinsk, Test and Site, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 106-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Semipalatinsk, Test and Site is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “nuclear testing venue for the Soviet Union in northeast Kazakhstan” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Semipalatinsk Test Site primary sources, Semipalatinsk Test Site archive and Semipalatinsk research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Semipalatinsk Test Site” 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.