Ulan-Ude is the capital city of the Republic of Buryatia, Russia; it is located about 100km southeast of Lake Baikal on the Uda River at its confluence with the Selenga. According to the 2010 Census, 404,426 people lived in Ulan-Ude; up from 359,391 recorded in the 2002 Census, making the city the third largest in eastern Siberia by population.NamesUlan-Ude was first called Udinskoye for its location on the Uda River. From around 1735, the settlement was called Udinsk and was granted town status under that name in 1775. The name was changed to Verkhneudinsk, literally "Upper Udinsk", in 1783 to differentiate it from Nizhneudinsk lying on a different Uda River near Irkutsk which was granted town status that year. The "upper" and "lower" refer to positions of the two cities relative to each other, not the location of the cities on their respective Uda rivers. Verkhneudinsk lies at the mouth of its Uda, i.e. the lower end, while Nizhneudinsk is along the middle stretch of its Uda. The current name was given to the city in 1934 and means "red Uda" in Buryat, reflecting the Soviet Union's Communist ideology.