Land and People

　　Major Geographic Features

　　The world's largest country by land area, Russia ranks sixth in terms of population. It occupies much of E Europe and all of N Asia, extending for c.5,000 mi (8,000 km) from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east and for 1,500 to 2,500 mi (2,400　4,000 km) from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Altai and Sayan mts., and the Amur and Ussuri rivers in the south. The Urals form the conventional geographic boundary between the European and Siberian parts of Russia. Russia's dominant relief features are (from west to east) the East European plain, the Urals, the West Siberian lowland, and the central Siberian plateau.

　　Mt. Elbrus (18,481 ft/5,633 m), in the Caucasus, is the highest peak in the country. The chief rivers draining the European Russia are the Don (into the Black Sea), the Volga (into the Caspian Sea), the Northern Dvina (into the White Sea), the Western Dvina (into the Baltic Sea), and the Pechora (into the Barents Sea). (For the main physical features of the Siberian Russia, see Siberia.) The climate of Russia, generally continental, varies from extreme cold in N Russia and Siberia (where Verkhoyansk, the coldest settled place on earth, is situated), to subtropical along the Black Sea shore. The soil and vegetation zones include the tundra and taiga belts, the entire wooded steppe and northern black-earth steppes, and isolated sections of semidesert, desert, and subtropical zones. (For additional information, see the discussion of the nine physioeconomic regions under Economy below.)

　　Population and Ethnic Groups

　　Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has experienced a decline in population. This is due in part to the difficult economic conditions the nation has endured, especially in the 1990s, which has led to a low birth rate, and to a reduced male life expectancy. The population drop has been slowed somewhat by immigration consisting mainly of ethnic Russians from other areas of the former Soviet Union.

　　There are at least 60 different recognized ethnic groups in Russia, but the vast majority of the population are Russians (83%). There are also Ukrainians (3%) and such non-Slavic linguistic and ethnic groups as Tatars (3%), Bashkirs, Chuvash, Komi, Komi-Permyaks, Udmurts, Mari, Mordovians, Jews, Germans, Armenians, and numerous groups in the Far North and in the Caucasus. Russian is the official language.

　　Political Subdivisions and Major Cities

　　Administratively, the Federation has generally relied on regional divisions inherited from the Stalin and Brezhnev constitutions of 1936 and 1977. Each area with a predominantly Russian population is constituted as a territory (kray) or region (oblast); non-Russian nationalities are constituted, in descending order of importance, as republics, autonomous regions (oblasts), and autonomous areas (okrugs). Russia has 21 republics: Adygey, Altai, Bashkortostan, Buryat, Chechnya, Chuvash, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkar, Kalmykia, Karachay-Cherkess, Karelia, Khakass, Komi, Mari El, Mordovia, North Ossetia-Alania, Sakha, Tatarstan, Tuva, and Udmurt; one autonomous region (or oblast): Jewish (Birobidzhan); seven autonomous national areas (okrugs): Agin-Buryat, Chukotka, Khanty-Mansi, Koryak, Nenets, Ust-Ordyn-Buryat, and Yamalo-Nenets; 48 Russian regions (oblasts; the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg also have oblast status); and seven Russian territories (krays). Oblasts and krays are roughly equivalent to provinces. In addition to Moscow, other major urban areas in Russia include Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), Nizhny Novgorod (formerly Gorky), Rostov-na-Donu, Volgograd, Kazan, Samara (formerly Kuybyshev), Ufa, Perm, Yekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk), Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, and Vladivostok.

　　After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, all of the former autonomous republics of the RSFSR were raised to full republic status, and four of the autonomous regions (Adygey, Altai, Karachay-Cherkess, and Khakass) were made full republics as well. Under President Putin, there have been moves toward consolidating the patchwork federal structure of the federation. In 2000 the administrative units of Russia were grouped into seven regional administrative districts. The federal districts (and their adminstrative centers) are Northwest (St. Petersburg), Central (Moscow), Volga (Nizhny Novgorod), North Caucasus (Rostov-na-Donu), Urals (Yekaterinburg), Siberia (Novosibirsk), and Russian Far East (Khabarovsk). In 2005, in the first of several planned mergers, the Perm region and Komi-Permyak Autonomous Area were unified as Perm Territory.