Russia

Russia covers about 17.1 million square kilometres, roughly one eighth of all land on Earth. It spans eleven time zones.

Sources round the area slightly differently, from 17.07 to 17.10 million km².

Context

Area figures for countries are compiled by national statistical agencies and reconciled by reference publishers. Russia's total includes land and inland water, and the small spread between published values reflects differences in how rivers, lakes and coastal waters are counted rather than any real uncertainty about the country's extent. For comparison, Canada, the next largest, is about 10 million km², so Russia is roughly 1.7 times its size.

Most of Russia's territory lies in Asia, with the larger share of land east of the Ural Mountains, yet most of its people live in the European part to the west. Its width from the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad to the Pacific coast produces the eleven time zones named in the entry, and a flight across the country takes many hours.

Large parts of the area are thinly populated: Siberia and the Far East contain permafrost, boreal forest (taiga) and tundra, which limit farming and settlement. Size has therefore translated into abundant natural resources and long borders rather than into a proportionally large population.

Russia's land borders are also long, touching more than a dozen countries and territories, and its Arctic coast along the Arctic Ocean is frozen for much of the year, which has historically limited sea access.