With the appearance of the first factories in the Urals and the establishment of production and economic relations between the authorities and the owners, pronounced features of a subsistence economy appeared: everything necessary to ensure production was prepared and carried out at the factories on their own. Mining factories  had their own landholdings, mines, quarries, forestry, stable yards, hayfields, marinas, courts, mills, and various auxiliary workshops. Such industrial and economic complexes were called mining districts and were legally described in the Mountain Regulations of 1806. The first mining plants of the Urals were fortified settlements with defensive structures to protect them from the raids of the Bashkirs. 
In total, about 250-260 mining plants of various specializations were built in the Urals and the Kama region: iron foundries, copper smelting, iron-making and processing plants. In total, there were about 500 mining plants in Russia. The first Ural ironworks of the 17th century did not have blast furnaces and were small forges of several smelting furnaces. Such factories include Nitsynsky (founded in 1630), Krasnoborsky (1640), Tumashevsky (1669), Dalmatovsky Monastery Zhelezenskoye settlement (1683, the Kamensky iron foundry was founded on the site of the plant) and the plant in Aramashevskaya Sloboda (1654). The first full-fledged mining plants in the Urals were the Nevyansky and Kamensky plants, founded in 1699-1700 and equipped with blast furnaces, the last mining plant was Ivano-Pavlovsky, launched in 1875. Later, metallurgical plants and mills were already under construction. Actually, the beginning of the history of the mining industry in the Urals is considered to be January 1697, when Governor D. M. Protasyev reported to Moscow about the discovery of iron ore on the Tagil and Neyva rivers. The iron obtained from this ore was studied by Moscow gunsmiths and the Tula blacksmith N. D. Antufiev (Demidov) and was given a high appraisal. On May 10 and June 15, 1697, decrees were issued for the construction of the first Ural factories. And the date of birth of Ural metallurgy is considered to be 1701 when blast-furnace plants were launched and produced the first cast iron.
A specific feature of the Ural mining plants was the obligatory presence of a dam and a pond, which ensured the operation of factory mechanisms through water wheels. Therefore, mining plants were built in close proximity to ore deposits and the river. In a drought, when the water level in the navigable river decreased, the passage of ships was ensured by the synchronous discharge of water from several factory ponds located on the tributaries. The supply of charcoal was provided by the vast forest dachas assigned to the factories. The length of the dams of large factories reached 200–300 m and more (the largest dam of the Byngovsky plant was 695 m long), the width was 30–40 m, and the height was 6–10 m. Due to the climatic conditions of the Urals, it was necessary to maintain a large volume of water in the pond in order to avoid it freezing in the winter. The complete dependence of factories on the availability of water in the ponds led to frequent shutdowns of enterprises or their individual shops for a period of up to 200 days a year. To increase the water pressure, various methods were used: connecting ponds through channels with lakes or other ponds, replenishing ponds from high-mountain reservoirs through gutters. Another difference from European dams was the presence of pine or larch log cabins with valves to regulate the water level in the pond. A wide (up to 10 m and more) slot or "Veshnyak" served to let in excess water during spring floods or in summer after heavy rains. A narrower (about 2 m wide) working slot was intended to supply water to a water conduit - a wooden trough, which was laid along the entire length of the plant's territory and through which water was supplied by a system of wooden pipes and gutters to the impellers of numerous plant mechanisms. The dams of large factories had several slots. All production buildings were located along the working slots. At the same time, industries that required more energy to drive mechanisms were located closer to the dam. Directly behind the dam there was usually a blast-furnace shop, behind it - blast factories, further along the trough there were drilling, stacking, steel, armature and auxiliary factories. The blast furnace was connected to the dam by a bridge across which ore, coal and fluxes were delivered. Almost all the Ural mining plants of the 18th century had two blast furnaces in their composition; in the future, the number of furnaces could increase. Pig iron, as a rule, was sent to a blast factory, where it was processed into blast iron and pounded with hammers. At large factories, the number of hammers reached 8-13.
As a rule, the factory office, the manor house, the houses of the employees of the plant administration, and the church were located on the square in front of the plant. Subsequently, with the expansion of factories, such a layout became environmental stress on factory settlements, which gradually grew into cities. Factory ponds, where industrial waste was dumped, were at the same time a source of drinking water, which contributed to the spread of all kinds of illnesses. The plants located close to each other were eventually united by one settlement: Verkh-Neyvinsky and Nizhny-Verkhneyvinsky plants in Verkh-Neyvinsky, Yekaterinburg and Verkh-Isetsky plants in Yekaterinburg, and others.
The management of state-owned factories was carried out on the military settlements model. Mining superiors, who received the title of generals, were appointed by the authorities. The plant was provided with a military garrison, which partly supported the convoy with products. The work was led by mining officers and craftsmen, who were replaced on average every five years. In 1834, state-owned factories were legally equated with military organizations and their workers with soldiers. The management of private factories was carried out by the factory owners under the supervision of the state. The presence of one owner of factories in different regions contributed to the exchange of experience and technologies between enterprises.
In literature, over time, the term "mining district" became more widely used meaning a historically established complex of enterprises with lands and forests belonging to it, pits, mines, and a mining population living on its territory. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the term "mining plant" is practically not used.