Sunday, February 24, 2013

The Geography and Climate of Russia


Russia, the largest country in the world, is big, very big, comprising roughly 1/6th of the world's land mass and its double the size of the United States. Russia is primarily a northern country which covers mostly north of China and east of Europe. However, it tends to resemble Canada and Alaska more in terms of climate since Russia leans closely to the Arctic. Since Russia is similar to Canada and Alaska, Russia’s climate tends to be based on long winters and short summer. This is possible because Russia’s land mass is close to the sea. However, this also means that the agricultural growing season tends to be short, limiting the types of crops that can be grown.

Most of the land consists of vast plains: steppe to the south, taiga in the center; tundra to the north. This vast Eurasian plain, stretching from the Pacific Coast all the way into Central Europe, is broken only by the Ural Mountains in the middle--mountains that because of their low height have never really been a barrier to travel or invasion. There are mountain ranges along the southern border of Russia. Meaning that Russia’s land possesses mostly every ecosystem ever know, except for the tropical ecosystem. And with such a large variety of ecosystem, Russia even holds a variety of animals known such as the lynx, snow leopard, brown bear and many more.

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