a city under oblast jurisdiction in Rostov Oblast, RSFSR. Located on the right banks of the Tuzlov and Aksai rivers (the latter is a branch of the lower Don), on the Kharkov-Rostov-on-Don highway. Railroad station 40 km northeast of Rostov-on-Don. Population, 178,000 (1974; 52,000 in 1897, 81,000 in 1939, and 123,000 in 1959). Novocherkassk has two city raions.

Novocherkassk was founded in 1805 as the administrative center of the Land (after 1870, Region) of the Don Cossack Host. In the 19th century the city developed as a cossack military and administrative capital. In connection with the laying of the Millerovo-Rostov-on-Don railroad through Novocherkassk (1864), a depot was built there. In 1905 a committee of the RSDLP was formed in Novocherkassk. During the Civil War of 1918–20, Novocherkassk was the center of the Don counterrevolution. It was finally liberated by the Red Army on Jan. 7, 1920. From July 24, 1942, to Feb. 13, 1943, it was occupied by fascist German troops.

Plants for the production of steam locomotives, machine tools, mine drilling equipment, and mining machinery were built in Novocherkassk in the 1930’s. In the 1950’s and 1960’s the city was transformed into a large industrial center of the southern European part of the USSR. A plant for production of electric locomotives was built to replace the steam-locomotive plant. Other construction included an electrode plant (production of chemical apparatus from graphite and lamellar graphite), a synthetic-products plant using natural gas as the raw material, and plants producing machinery for the petroleum industry, permanent magnets, and silicate brick. The food-processing industry is represented by a meat-packing plant, a winery, and a flour-milling combine. The Novocherkassk State Regional Electric Power Plant, with a capacity of 2.4 million kilowatts, is located in the area.

The city’s educational institutions include the Novocherkassk Polytechnic Institute, an engineering and land-reclamation institute, the Don Agricultural Institute (located at Persianovka station), and 13 special educational institutions. There are research institutions of chemical hydrology, viticulture and wine-making, hydraulic engineering and land reclamation, and electric locomotive construction. Novocherkassk has an oblast museum of the history of the Don Cossacks, the memorial Home Museum of the artist and battle painter M. B. Grekov, a drama theater, and a people’s amateur opera and ballet theater.

Novocherkassk has a monument to Ermak (bronze and granite, unveiled in 1904; sculptor, V. A. Beklemishev; design by M. O. Mikeshin), who according to legend was a Don Cossack, and a triumphal arch (1817) to commemorate the Patriotic War of 1812 and the foreign campaigns of 1813–14.