With a total area of 17 million square kilometers, Russia is the largest
country in the world. It spans two continents (Europe and Asia) and
borders Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic countries to the west,
Finland to the north, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Mongolia and
China to the south, and North Korea to the east. The United States and
Japan are not far from the eastern coast of Russia.
The extreme
northernmost point of the country's mainland is Cape Fligely on Rudolf
Island of Franz Josef Land archipelago; the southernmost point is
located in the Republic of Dagestan on the border with Azerbaijan. The
distance between the western and the eastern borders of Russia is 9,000
km (from the Vistula Spit in Kaliningrad Bay to Cape Dezhnev in
Chukotka); the easternmost point is Rotmanov Island in the Bering
Strait. Thus, Russia's territory spans over 4,000 km from north to
south, and almost 10,000 km from west to east.
Russia has the
longest border in the world, a total of 60,932 km, including 38,808 km
of maritime borders (in the north and east) and 14,508 of land borders
(in the south and west). Russia borders Kazakhstan (6,846 km), China
(3,645 km), Mongolia (3,485 km), Ukraine (1,576 km), Finland (1,340 km),
Belarus (959 km), Georgia (723 km), Estonia (294 km), Azerbaijan (284
km), Lithuania (280.5 km), Poland (232 km), Latvia (217 km), Norway (196
km), and North Korea (19 km).
Russia has about 120,000 rivers
over 10 kilometers long. The total length of these rivers is 2.3 million
kilometers. The largest rivers are the Ob, Irtysh, Yenisey, Amur, and
Volga in the European part of the country. There are about 2 million
freshwater and salt lakes in Russia. The largest lakes are Lake Baikal
(which holds about 20% of the world's total freshwater supply, not
counting the fresh water frozen in the polar ice caps and glaciers),
Lake Ladoga, Lake Onega, and Lake Taimyr.
The forest zone
covers 41% of Russia's plainlands; the share of the forest-steppe zone
is 11.2% and the tundra forest belt 20.5%.
The coasts of Russia
are washed by 12 seas of three ocean basins: the Atlantic Ocean (the
Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov), the Arctic Ocean (the
Barents Sea, the White Sea, the Kara Sea, the Laptev Sea, the East
Siberian Sea and the Chukchee Sea) and the Pacific Ocean (the Bering
Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan), as well the Caspian Sea,
which is a closed basin.
Climate
Due to its vast territory,
Russia is a country of natural contrasts. The northern part of the
country is located in the arctic and subarctic climate zones, while the
southern regions have a subtropical climate. The climate of other
regions of the country is moderate.
Russian time zones
There
are eleven time zones in Russia (more than in any other country in the
world): from UTC +1 in Kalinigrad to UTC +12 in Kamchatka.