What is "okato"

Russian Classification on Objects of Administrative Division , or OKATO , also called All-Russian classification on units of administrative and territorial distribution in English, is one of several Russian national registers. OKATO's purpose is organization of information about structure of the administrative divisions of the federal subjects of Russia.

The document assigns numeric codes to each administrative division of the country, which are hierarchically structured from the federal subject level down to selsoviet level; an expanded version also includes listings of individual inhabited localities within each administrative division.

OKATO is used for statistical and tax purposes. It was adopted on July 31, 1995, replacing SOATO (Designation System of Objects of Administrative Division of the Union of SSR and the Union Republics, as well as Inhabited Localities). It went into effect on January 1, 1997 and as of 2014 underwent 243 revisions. The compilation and maintenance of the OKATO data are the responsibility of the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) of Russia.