The article implements the main tasks: development ranking of the regions in the sphere of the cultural industry and Russian regions rating creation to estimate the degree of integration and effectiveness of the cultural industry development in every region; developing of new estimates of the activities of the cultural industry and mathematical instruments for evaluating its comparative effectiveness (index number creating); developing of criteria, integrated indices, instruments, indices and application algorithm; development of a regional classification methodology, creation of a development ranking map of Russian regions in the sphere of the cultural industry and Russian regions rating creation. To evaluate the index of effectiveness, an undirected variable-scale model is proposed, which allows both a reduction in inputs and an increase in outputs for an ineffective DMU to achieve an efficient frontier. It is proposed to use a method based on information entropy to construct an aggregated index. Evaluation criteria were chosen in such a way as to comprehensively reflect the resources available to cultural institutions and to characterize the targeted results of activities according to their structural characteristics, to have comparable quantitative values, to be available in official sources. As a part of the proposed approach, the regional assessment of the cultural industry at the first level is carried out in three directions (theaters, museums, concert organizations and independent groups). The data for 78 regions of the Russian Federation were normalized and brought to a unified scale. As a result of obtaining a numeric evaluation of the integrated index of the effectiveness of the cultural industry, it is possible to classify Russian regions by allocating several groups. The task of visualization of the obtained results is solved by constructing a map of Russian regions ranking in terms of cultural institutions effectiveness. The author's method can be used by regional authorities in evaluating and planning the socio-economic development of the region and the development of the regional economy as well as in making managerial decisions in the sphere of cultural management.