BASIC
INFORMATION
Full
Name: RUSSIA
Capital
Moscow
Largest city Moscow
Official language
Russian
Government
Semi-presidential Federal republic
Area 17,075,400
km²
Population
142,400,000
Currency Ruble
(RUB)
Time
zone (UTC+2 to +12)
Internet
TLD .ru
Calling
code +7
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GEOGRAPHY
& BACKGROUND
Russia
also the Russian Federation (Rossiyskaya
Federatsiya; pronounced, listen (help·info)),
is a country that stretches over a vast
expanse of Europe and Asia. With an area
of 17,075,200 square kilometres, it is the
largest country in the world by land mass,
covering almost twice the territory of the
next-largest country, Canada. It ranks as
the world's eighth largest population. Russia
shares land borders with the following countries
(counter-clockwise from NW to SE): Norway,
Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,
China, Mongolia and North Korea. It is also
close to the United States (Alaska), Canada,
Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Sweden, and
Japan across relatively small stretches
of water.
Formerly
the dominant republic of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics (USSR), Russia is now
an independent country and an influential
member of the Commonwealth of Independent
States, since the Union's dissolution in
December 1991. During the Soviet era, Russia
was officially called the Russian Soviet
Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Russia
is considered the Soviet Union's successor
state in diplomatic matters.
Most
of the area, population, and industrial
production of the Soviet Union, then one
of the world's two superpowers, lay in Russia.
After the breakup of the USSR, Russia's
global role was greatly diminished compared
to that of the former Soviet Union. In October
2005, the federal statistics agency reported
that Russia's population has shrunk by more
than half a million people dipping to 143
million, although Russia remains the second
country in the world by the number of immigrants
from abroad
The
Russian Federation stretches across much
of the north of the supercontinent of Eurasia.
Although it contains a large share of the
world's Arctic and sub-Arctic areas, and
therefore has less population, economic
activity, and physical variety per unit
area than most countries, the great area
south of these still accommodates a great
variety of landscapes and climates. Russia
is the coldest country in the world. The
mid-annual temperature is -5.5°C (22°F).
For comparison, the mid-annual temperature
in Iceland is 1.2°C (34°F) and in
Sweden is 4°C (39°F), although the
variety of climates within Russia makes
such a comparison somewhat misleading.
Most
of the land consists of vast plains, both
in the European part and the part of asian
territory, that is largely known as Siberia.
These plains are predominantly steppe to
the south and heavily forested to the north,
with tundra along the northern coast. The
permafrost (areas of Siberia and the Far
East) occupies more than half of territory
of Russia. Mountain ranges are found along
the southern borders, such as the Caucasus
(containing Mount Elbrus, Russia's and Europe's
highest point at 5,642 m / 18,511 ft) and
the Altai, and in the eastern parts, such
as the Verkhoyansk Range or the volcanoes
on Kamchatka. The more central Ural Mountains,
a north-south range that form the primary
divide between Europe and Asia, are also
notable.
Russia
has an extensive coastline of over 37,000
kilometres (23,000 mi) along the Arctic
and Pacific Oceans, as well as more or less
inland seas such as the Baltic, Black and
Caspian seas. Some smaller bodies of water
are part of the open oceans; the Barents
Sea, White Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea and
East Siberian Sea are part of the Arctic,
whereas the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk and
the Sea of Japan belong to the Pacific Ocean.
Major
islands found in them include Novaya Zemlya,
the Franz Josef Land, the New Siberian Islands,
Wrangel Island, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin.
(See List of islands of Russia). The Diomede
Islands (one controlled by Russia, the other
by the United States) are just three kilometres
(1.9 mi) apart, and Kunashir Island (controlled
by Russia but claimed by Japan) is about
twenty kilometres (12 mi) from Hokkaido.
For
more information please visit
http://www.fco.gov.uk/
