Kemerovo, city and administrative centre of Kemerovo oblast (region), south-central Russia. Kemerovo lies along the Tom River near the foothills of the Kuznetsk Alatau Mountains. The small village of Kemerovo was founded in the 1830s and merged with the village of Shcheglovo in 1918 to form the city of Shcheglovsk. The city began to grow rapidly with the development of the Kuznetsk Coal Basin, and in 1932 it reverted to the name Kemerovo. Today it is a major coal-mining centre, with pits in and around the city, and it is one of the most important chemical-manufacturing cities in Russia. Its products include nitrogenous fertilizers, plastics, material for synthetic fibres, aniline dyes and paints, caustic soda, ammonia, and pharmaceutical goods. The city’s engineering industries manufacture coal-mining equipment and agricultural machinery, and sawmilling and timber working are important. There are mining and teacher-training institutes in the city. Pop. (2006 est.) 520,138.