How big is Russia?
In terms of its physical size, the Russian Federation Российская Федерация (established in 1991) is the largest country in the world. It covers an area of more than 6 million square miles, that is, more than one-ninth of the world’s total land area. Russia Россия is nearly two times the size of the United States. The country is so large that it crosses 11 time zones! The country spans parts of two continents: Europe and Asia. The Ural Mountains mark the boundary between the continents and separate what is known as European Russia from its vast eastern region. Russia contains three broad geographic areas: 1) European Russia, which is located west of the Ural Mountains. 2) Siberia, the vast plain stretching from east of the Urals almost to the Pacific Ocean. 3) Far Eastern Russia, which is the extreme southeast of the country, that is, the Pacific coastal fringe. Russia also possesses many islands in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. Among these are the Kuril Islands located at the extreme
Russian territory totals 17,075,200 sq km (which is about 1.8 times the size of the United States). Its land boundaries stretch for 20,017 km neighboring more countries than any other country on the planet. The sun literally never sets on Russia: when it is evening in St. Petersburg, it is already a next day on Russia’s Pacific shores. Just look at the map of Russia below and consider this: it borders Japan in the East and Poland in the West, the Arctic circle in the North and China in the South. It takes 10 hours flying to get from Moscow to Vladivostok, Russia’s port in the Pacific. If you are going by train, it will take you about 7 days. How did Russia get so big? Actually, Russia today is smaller than anytime in its history in the past 300 years. Russian Empire rapidly expanded in all directions for the past 4 centuries. In the 17th century it started colonization of Siberia. In 18th century it expanded to the North following the victory in the Seven Year War with Sweden, to the S
