Russia is the largest country in the world. Its area reaches 17.1 million square meters. The state is located on the Eurasian continent. Russia has a great length from west to east, so in its regions there is a significant time difference.
Russian borders
The customs, economic and other borders of Russia are taken outside the former USSR, which in itself is a unique phenomenon. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, all CIS countries faced a serious problem. On the one hand, the inconsistency of the legislative and financial systems forced them to close the economic space, but at the same time, the new border lines of the states did not coincide with ethnic cultural borders, and the society did not want to recognize the introduced border restrictions, and most importantly, Russia was not able to carry out such a short period demarcation and equip engineering facilities. The establishment of customs points was also a big problem.
Description of state borders
The length of the borders of the Russian Federation reaches 60 thousand kilometers, of which 40 thousand km fall on the sea borders. The country's economic marine space is located 370 kilometers from the coastal zone. Here may be the courts of other states for the extraction of natural resources. The western and southern borders of the Russian Federation are mainly land, the northern and eastern borders are mainly marine. The fact that the state borders of Russia are so long is explained by the enormous size of its territory and the uneven outlines of the lines of the sea coasts of the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans that wash it from three sides.
Land borders of Russia
In the west and east of the country, land borders have a number of characteristic differences. In pre-revolutionary Russia, they were designated along natural lines. As the state expanded, it was necessary to somehow fix the borders of the seas and land. At the same time, in sparsely populated areas, for greater recognition, they should be clearly indicated - it can be a mountain range, a river, and so on. But this nature of the area is observed mainly from the eastern side of the southern border.
Western and southwestern land borders of the state
Modern lines of the western and southwestern borders of Russia have arisen as a result of the division of individual entities in the country. For the most part, these are administrative borders that were previously intrastate. They turned out to be practically unrelated to natural objects. Thus, the borders of Russia with Poland and Finland were formed.
The land borders of Russia are also long. After the collapse of the union, the number of neighbors remained the same. There are fourteen of them. With Japan and the USA, the Russian Federation has only maritime borders. But in the days of the USSR, the country bordered only with eight states, the remaining lines between the states were considered internal and were conditional. In the north-west, the borders of the Russian Federation are in contact with Finland and Norway.
The state’s borders have already officially received the Russian borders with Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. Along the western and southwestern borders are Ukraine and Belarus. The southern part of the country borders on Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, the republics of Tuva, Altai, Buryatia. In the extreme southeast, the Primorsky Territory of the Russian Federation borders on the DPRK. The length of the border line is only 17 km.
Northern border of the country
The maritime border of Russia in the north and east of the country is 12 miles from the coastline. By sea, the Russian Federation borders on 12 states. The northern borders pass through the waters of the Arctic Ocean - these are the Kara, Laptev, Barents, East Siberian and Chukchi seas. Within the Arctic Ocean, starting from the Russian coast and to the North Pole, the Arctic sector is located. It is limited by conditional lines from the west of the Rybachy Peninsula and the east of Ratmanov Island to the North Pole. Polar possessions are a relative concept, and the territorial waters of this sector of Russia do not belong, we can only talk about the belonging of the Arctic waters.
Eastern Russian border
The maritime border of Russia from its eastern part passes through the waters of the Pacific seas. On this side, the immediate neighbors of the country are the United States and Japan. The Russian Federation borders with Japan in the Laperouse Strait, and in the Bering Strait with the United States (between Ratmanova Island, which is Russian, and Krusenstern, owned by the States). Bering Sea is located between the peninsulas of Chukotka, Alaska, Kamchatka and the Aleutian Islands. The Sea of Okhotsk lies between the Kamchatka Peninsulas, the Hokkaido Islands, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin.
The southern shores of Sakhalin and Primorsky Krai are washed by the Sea of Japan. All the seas of the Far East, with which Russia has a maritime border, partially freeze. Moreover, Okhotsk, even taking into account the fact that part of it lies in the southern parallel, turns out to be the most severe in this regard. In its northwestern part, the ice period is 280 days per year. Due to the large extent of the seas along the eastern line of Russia from north to south, climatic conditions in the country vary significantly.
In the summer, typhoons enter the waters of the Sea of Japan, which are fraught with great destruction. On the Pacific coast in its seismically active zones, catastrophic tsunamis occur as a result of coastal and underwater earthquakes.
Problems of the eastern border of Russia
The maritime borders of Russia and the United States are now marked, but previously there were border problems. The Russian Empire in 1867 sold Alaska for seven million dollars. There are certain difficulties in determining the borders of states in the Bering Strait. Russia and Japan are also having problems disputing the islands of the Lesser Kuril Ridge, the total area of which is 8548.96 square meters. km The dispute arose about the state water area and the territory of the Russian Federation with an area of three hundred thousand square kilometers, including for the economic zone of the sea and islands, which is rich in seafood and fish, and for the shelf zone, which has oil reserves.
In 1855, a treaty was concluded, according to which the islands of the Lesser Kuril Ridge remained behind Japan. In 1875, all the Kuril Islands cross over to Japan. In 1905, following the results of the Russo-Japanese War, the Portsmouth Treaty was concluded, and Russia ceded South Sakhalin to Japan. In 1945, when Japan signed the act of unconditional surrender, Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands became part of the USSR, but their nationality was not defined in the 1951 agreement (San Francisco). The Japanese side argued that the South Kuril Islands are part of Japan, and they have nothing to do with the treaty of 1875, since they are not part of the Kuril Ridge, but belong to the Japanese Islands, and therefore the validity of the agreement signed in San Francisco , does not apply to them.
Western border of the state
The western maritime border of Russia connects the country with many European countries. It passes through the waters of the Baltic Sea, which belongs to the Atlantic Ocean and forms bays off the coast of the Russian Federation. They host Russian ports. In the Gulf of Finland is the northern capital of Russia - St. Petersburg - and Vyborg. On the river Prelog, flowing into the Vistula Gulf, is Kaliningrad. A large Novoluga port is being built at the mouth of the Luga River. The Baltic Sea does not freeze only off the coast of the Kaliningrad region. This Russian maritime border on the map connects the country (across the sea) with states such as Poland, Germany and Sweden.
Southwest border
The southwestern part of Russia is washed by the waters of the Azov, Caspian and Black Seas. The maritime borders of the Black Sea give Russia access to the Mediterranean. On the shores of the Tsemess bay is the port of Novorossiysk. In the Taganrog Bay - the port of Taganrog. In the city of Sevastopol is one of the best bays. The Sea of Azov and the Black Sea are of great importance for transport links between Russia and the countries of foreign Europe and the Mediterranean. Also, the maritime borders of the Russian Federation are in contact with Georgia and Ukraine. In the south, the border with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan passes through the waters of the Caspian Sea.
Consequently, the borders of the Russian Federation to a greater extent pass along natural boundaries: mountains, seas and rivers. Due to some of them, international contacts are complicated (high mountains, glaciers at sea, and so on). Others, on the contrary, are favorable for cooperation with neighbors and allow laying river and land international routes and creating an economic space.
Extreme points of Russia
In the northern part, the extreme point is Cape Chelyuskin, which is located on the Taimyr Peninsula. The extreme island point is Cape Fliegeli, which is located on one of the islands of the Franz Joseph archipelago - Rudolph. The extreme southern point is the crest of the Caucasian ridge, the western one is the limb of the Sandy Spit of the Baltic Sea, the eastern one is Cape Dezhnev on the Chukchi Peninsula.
Features of the geographical location of Russia
Most of the country is in temperate latitudes, but its northern part is located in the harsh conditions of the Arctic. The territory of Russia is rich in various natural resources, which are available in large quantities. The country occupies a leading position in the world in terms of size and land area. The area of Russian forests reaches seven hundred million hectares.
The sheer size of the country is very important both from an economic point of view and from a defense point of view. The territory of the Russian Federation has the longest plains on the planet. These are the West Siberian and Russian (East European) plains. The air masses of the Arctic Ocean are affecting the country's northern expanses. The territory of Russia is rich in various kinds of minerals and minerals. It is here that about 40% of all world reserves of iron ore are concentrated. The main area of deposits and rich reserves of copper ores is considered to be the Urals and the Urals region. Here, in the Middle Urals, there are deposits of precious stones, such as emerald, ruby, amethyst. And another interesting feature of the country is that it is located in all geographical areas of the northern hemisphere, with the exception of the tropics.