Russia

Russia is the biggest country in the world.

It is so big that it is in two parts of the world, Europe and Asia. It has snowy forests and long rivers. The capital city is called Moscow.

Russia is the largest country on Earth, almost twice as big as Canada, the next largest. It covers the eastern part of Europe and the whole of northern Asia. It is so wide that it has 11 time zones: when it is early morning in the far west, it is already late afternoon in the far east.

The Ural Mountains are the traditional line between the European part and the Asian part, which is called Siberia. Most people live in the west, around the capital, Moscow. About 143.5 million people live in Russia.

Russia extends across the whole of northern Asia and the eastern third of Europe, spanning 11 time zones and some 9,000 km from west to east. Britannica calls it by far the world's largest country, covering nearly twice the territory of Canada; Wikidata gives 17,075,400 square kilometers. It became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

The Ural Mountains form the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia; east of them lies Siberia. Most of the population is concentrated in the European part, especially the fertile region around Moscow, though Russians and Russian speakers moved steadily east into Siberia from the 17th century onward. The World Bank estimated the population at about 143.5 million in 2025. Russia is a federal republic with a two-house Federal Assembly.

Moscow is the capital of Russia.

In the middle of Moscow is the Kremlin, with thick red walls. Next to it is Red Square. Saint Petersburg is a city with lots of canals and bridges.

Moscow, the capital, is home to about 13.3 million people (2025). At its heart is the Kremlin, a walled fortress built between the 1300s and the 1600s. Beside it lies Red Square, where St. Basil's Cathedral, with its bright onion-shaped domes, is a famous place of worship and a landmark.

Saint Petersburg, the second biggest city, was begun in 1703 under Peter the Great. It has so many canals and more than 400 bridges that people call it the 'Venice of the North'. Far to the east, Vladivostok and Irkutsk are big cities in Siberia.

Moscow (about 13.3 million people in 2025) and Saint Petersburg (about 5.7 million, 2025) are Russia's two most important cultural and financial centers. UNESCO inscribed the Kremlin and Red Square in 1990: the Kremlin, built between the 14th and 17th centuries by Russian and foreign architects, was the residence of the Grand Prince and a religious center, and St. Basil's, on Red Square, is in UNESCO's words one of the most beautiful Russian Orthodox monuments.

Saint Petersburg grew from a vast urban project begun in 1703 under Peter the Great; with numerous canals and more than 400 bridges, it was later called Leningrad in the Soviet period and is closely associated with the October Revolution. Its Baroque and neoclassical buildings include the Winter Palace and the Hermitage. On the Volga, the Kazan Kremlin, conquered by Ivan IV in 1552, is described by UNESCO as the only surviving Tatar fortress in Russia; it was inscribed in 2000.

Russia has a lot of forest.

In the far north it is very cold, and the ground stays frozen. Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world. In winter, Russia gets very cold and snowy.

Russia's land is arranged in wide bands from north to south. In the far north is the tundra, a flat land with no trees. South of it is the taiga, a huge evergreen forest, and further south are grassy plains called the steppe. Under much of the north, the ground is frozen all year round. This is called permafrost.

Lake Baikal in Siberia is the deepest lake in the world, about 1,700 meters deep, and the oldest, about 25 million years old. Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains, 5,642 meters high, is Russia's highest point. Winters can be extremely cold: at Oymyakon, a temperature of −71 °C was once recorded.

Russia's six environmental belts run roughly east to west: Arctic desert on the high Arctic islands, tundra (nearly a tenth of the country), the taiga or boreal forest, the largest zone, then mixed and deciduous forest, wooded steppe and steppe. Forests cover more than two-fifths of the land, and permafrost underlies some 10 million square kilometers, which makes building roads and towns difficult.

The west is mostly lowland: the Russian Plain reaches east to the Urals, whose highest peak, Mount Narodnaya, is only 1,895 m. East of the Yenisey River the land is mostly mountainous. Mount Elbrus (5,642 m), just inside the Caucasus border, is the highest point. Lake Baikal, a World Heritage Site since 1996, is the world's oldest (25 million years) and deepest (1,700 m) lake and holds about 20 percent of Earth's unfrozen fresh water. Winters are extreme: Oymyakon recorded −71 °C, the lowest January minimum outside Antarctica, and Verkhoyansk averages −50 °C in January.

Big brown bears live in Russia's forests.

Walruses with long tusks rest on Arctic beaches. Arctic foxes and snowy owls live on the cold tundra. People in the north look after reindeer.

The taiga is home to sables, squirrels, foxes, elks, bears and wolves. On the Kamchatka peninsula in the far east, lots of brown bears live among the volcanoes. In winter, brown bears can sleep in a den for four to six months.

On the tundra, Arctic foxes, lemmings and snowy owls live, and Indigenous people herd reindeer. Along the Arctic coasts, walruses rest on the ice and on beaches. Both male and female walruses have two long ivory tusks. In the far southeast, endangered Siberian tigers live in pockets of forest, and people work hard to protect them.

Russia's wildlife follows its environmental belts. The tundra's main animals are Arctic foxes, musk oxen, beavers, lemmings, snowy owls and ptarmigan, besides reindeer herded by Indigenous peoples. The taiga is rich in fur-bearing animals such as sables, squirrels, martens, foxes and ermines, and also supports elks, bears, muskrats and wolves. UNESCO notes exceptional concentrations of brown bears, sea otters and Steller's sea eagles in the Volcanoes of Kamchatka World Heritage Site.

Pacific walruses haul out on the sea ice and along the coasts and islands of Russia and Alaska in the Bering and Chukchi seas; bulls can reach about 3.7 m and up to 2 tons. Lake Baikal's age and isolation have produced one of the world's richest and most unusual freshwater faunas. The endangered Siberian tiger, which lives in pockets of forest in the Primorye and Khabarovsk regions, has been the focus of intense conservation efforts.

About 143 million people live in Russia.

Most people speak Russian. Many other languages are spoken too. A soup called borscht is made with beets. Many people end a meal with a cup of tea.

About 143.5 million people live in Russia. Most of them are ethnic Russians, but more than 120 other groups live there too, such as Tatars, Chuvash, Bashkirs and Chechens, speaking about 100 languages. Russian is the official language.

Many people are Russian Orthodox Christians, many are Muslims, and more than a quarter of people follow no religion. Popular foods include borscht, a beet soup made with cabbage, potatoes, carrots, sour cream and apples. Many people end a meal with a cup of tea, and kvass is a drink made from black bread.

Ethnic Russians make up more than four-fifths of the population, but Russia is a multiethnic society: more than 120 ethnic groups speaking some 100 languages, many with their own national territories among 21 minority republics. Only a few groups besides Russians have more than a million members, including the Tatars, Ukrainians, Chuvash, Bashkir, Chechens and Armenians. Languages belong to Indo-European (mainly East Slavic), Altaic (Turkic, Manchu-Tungus, Mongolian), Uralic (Finno-Ugric, Samoyedic) and Caucasian families.

Russian Orthodoxy is the largest religious denomination, with more than half of all adherents; Muslims are the second-largest group, Buddhism is common among the Buryat and Kalmyk peoples. Organized religion was repressed by Soviet authorities for most of the 20th century, and people with no religion still make up more than a quarter of the population. About 74 percent of people lived in cities in 2018. Everyday foods include cabbage, potatoes, carrots, sour cream and beets in borscht; tea or coffee ends many meals, and kvass, made from stale black bread, is used in the cold summer soup okroshka.