(before 1918, Belotsarsk; until 1926, Khem-Beldyr), a city and the capital of the Tuva ASSR; situated in the eastern part of the Tuva Hollow at the confluence of the Bolshoi and Malyi Enisei rivers, which form the Verkhnii Enisei. It is the terminus of the Us route, 436 km southeast of the Abakan railroad station. Population, 57,000 (1972; in 1939, 10,000, and in 1959, 34,000).

Kyzyl was founded in 1914. It was incorporated into the USSR in 1944 as part of the Tuva People’s Republic. There were only minor industrial enterprises in the city before 1944; in that year industry began to expand significantly. Now Kyzyl has a building-components combine, an automobile equipment plant, a leather factory, a brickyard, a sawmill, a brewery, a dairy, a furniture factory, and a garment combine.

Kyzyl is the cultural and scientific center of the republic. The Tuva Scientific Research Institute of Language, Literature, and History is in the city. It also has a pedagogic institute, a polytechnicum, an agricultural technicum, and schools of pedagogy, medicine, and the arts. There is a music and drama theater and a museum of local lore. The geographical center of Asia, marked by an obelisk, is in Kyzyl.