Almost 73 per cent of the population lives in urban areas. Russia became a country of large cities despite government restrictions during the Soviet period designed to limit the populations of major urban centres. Thirteen cities have more than 1 million inhabitants; most of these are in European Russia. Another 80 have populations of between 1 million and 200,000. The largest city by far is Moscow, the capital, with a population of 10,469,000 (2003 estimate). St Petersburg (called Leningrad during the Soviet era), which served as the national capital from 1712 to 1918, is the country’s second city. It is situated on the Gulf of Finland, a leading port and a primary industrial centre, and has a population of 4,596,000 (2005 estimate). The third-largest city, Nizhniy Novgorod, the largest city on the Volga and a major automotive and shipbuilding centre, has a population of 1,370,200 (2007 estimate).