The list below, enumerates the selected sites of the Soviet forced labor camps (known in Russian as the "corrective labor camps") of the Gulag. Most of them served mining, construction, and timber works. It is estimated that for most of its existence, the Gulag system consisted of over 30,000 camps, divided into three categories according to the number of prisoners held. The largest camps consisted of more than 25,000 prisoners each, medium size camps held from 5,000 to 25,000 inmates, and the smallest, but most numerous labor camps operated with less than 5,000 people each. Even this incomplete list can give a fair idea of the scale of forced labor in the USSR.