Аннотация:Comparative analysis of the urban impact on water quality in the main rivers ofCentral Russia has been performed based on hydrochemical observations dataset for the period2005-2019. It was obtained from monitoring results at the gauging stations located upstreamand downstream of 11 cities in the studied region. The pollution level was estimated bycomparison of the annually-averaged concentration values for 43 water quality indicators withtheir defined maximum permissible concentrations. The most substantial growth inconcentrations downstream of the cities compared to their upstream values was revealed forheavy metals, nitrogen compounds, phosphates and oil products. A much less significantnegative impact was imposed by cities on transparency, oxygen and major ions content. Thecities were ranked by the total number of hydrochemical indicators which concentrations 1)increase downstream of cities, 2) exceed the maximum permissible concentrations before andafter entering cities, 3) exceed the maximum permissible concentration before and afterentering cities while sufficiently increasing (>10%) at the downstream station. Additionally,the indicators were identified that experienced the most considerable impact from the urbanareas. Among the studied cities, three groups were identified differing from each other in thedegree of impact on the river water quality.