Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a big city in Russia.

It is built on many islands where a river meets the sea. Boats sail along its canals. Beautiful palaces line the river.

Saint Petersburg is the second-biggest city in Russia, in the far northwest of the country, about 640 kilometers from Moscow. It spreads across 42 islands in the delta of the Neva River, where the river flows into the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. About 5.65 million people lived there in 2025.

For two centuries, from 1712 to 1918, it was the capital of the Russian Empire. Its rivers, canals and bridges have earned it the nickname "Venice of the North," and it is often called Russia's cultural capital.

Saint Petersburg lies in the extreme northwest of Russia, about 640 km northwest of Moscow and only about 7° south of the Arctic Circle, on 42 islands of the Neva delta and the neighboring floodplain at the head of the Gulf of Finland. The city covers about 1,400 km²; Britannica gives 5,601,911 people in 2021 and an estimated 5,652,922 in 2025.

Britannica singles out three traits: a harmonious mix of western European and Russian architecture; the lack of a single center such as a kremlin, which most Russian cities of medieval origin have; and its many waterways, the short, full-flowing arms and canals of the Neva that earned it the name 'Venice of the North'. It ranks it as one of Europe's most splendid cities, Russia's unofficial cultural capital and, in its own eyes, its most European city.

Saint Petersburg has a giant green and white palace.

It is called the Winter Palace. Kings and queens called tsars once lived there. Now it is part of a huge art museum, the Hermitage. Across the river is an old fort with a tall golden spire.

The Winter Palace, built from 1754 to 1762, was the main home of Russia's rulers, the tsars. Its white columns stand out against green walls, and 176 statues line its roof. Today it is part of the Hermitage, a world-famous art museum that began in 1764 as the private collection of Empress Catherine II. In Palace Square in front stands the Alexander Column, 50 meters tall.

Across the river, the Peter-Paul Fortress was the city's very first building, begun in 1703. The slender golden spire of its cathedral rises above the walls. The huge golden dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral, 101 meters high, can be seen all over the city.

The Admiralty, nucleus of Peter's city, was rebuilt in 1806–23 by Andreyan Zakharov; its spire, topped by a ship-shaped weather vane, is a principal landmark. To the east, Palace Square, the oldest, holds the Alexander Column (1830–34), a 600-ton granite monolith 50 m high whose base is not fastened. Rastrelli's Baroque Winter Palace (1754–62), the fifth on the site, was gutted by fire in 1837 and recreated almost exactly by 1839; with the adjoining buildings it forms the State Hermitage Museum, a collection of world significance begun by Catherine II in 1764. Rossi's General Staff building (1811–29) curves opposite.

The Peter-Paul Fortress (1703), the city's first structure, gained stone walls 12 m high; Trezzini's Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul (1712–33), with its arrowlike golden spire, holds the tombs of nearly all the tsars from Peter onward. Montferrand's St. Isaac's (1818–58), one of the largest domed buildings in the world, now a museum, has a cupola gilded with about 100 kg of gold rising to 101 m. Nevsky Prospekt, the main avenue, runs past the Kazan Cathedral (1801–11). UNESCO notes more than 400 bridges.

Winters in Saint Petersburg are long and snowy.

In summer, the sky stays light almost all night! These are called the White Nights. People stay up late to enjoy them.

Saint Petersburg is far north, so winters are cold: in January, the average daily high is about −5 °C and the low about −11 °C, and snow covers the ground for about 132 days a year. Summers are mild, with July highs around 22 °C.

Because the city is so far north, from June 11 to July 2 daylight lasts nearly 19 hours. These are the famous White Nights, celebrated with music and theater festivals. Summer is also the wettest season.

The Atlantic gives Saint Petersburg a milder climate than its latitude suggests, though winters are cold: Britannica gives a mean January temperature of about −6 °C, a few degrees warmer than Moscow's, a July average of 18 °C and about 634 mm of precipitation a year, wettest in summer. The World Meteorological Organization lists mean daily maxima and minima of −5.1 °C and −10.7 °C in January and 21.9 °C and 13.9 °C in July. Snow lies about 132 days.

The low, marshy site floods, especially in autumn, when cyclonic winds drive gulf water upstream; severe floods struck in 1777, 1824 and 1924. A 29 km dike across the Gulf of Finland was built from the 1980s to hold back storm surges. From June 11 to July 2, the White Nights bring nearly 19 hours of daylight, marked by festivals of the Mariinsky and Hermitage theaters.