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Issuance of the Charter to the Towns

When: 1785
Where: Saint Petersburg
Part of: Catherine the Great issues the Charter to the Towns

Empress Catherine the Great issued the Charter to the Towns in 1785, distributing the population into six groups to limit noble power and create a middle estate.

The Charter was part of a series of reforms, including the 1775 Statute for the Administration of Provinces and the 1782 Police Ordinance. It aimed to establish a coherent system of administration for new governments. The act distributed all people into six groups, creating a middle estate and limiting the power of nobles.

Sources

Catherine the Great Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-25

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.