At nearly 6.6 million square miles (17 million sq km), Russia is the largest country in the world in geographic size, occupying more than one-ninth of the world's total land area. It is just slightly less than 1.8 times the size of the United States. Russia has a population of nearly 145 million. The majority live in European Russia, but sizable communities also live near mining and industrial centers. Russians are the predominant nationality at over 80%, with Tatars, Ukrainians, and Chuvash the largest minorities.

   Russia's three major geographic regions include European Russia, consisting of the territory west of the Ural Mountains; Siberia, stretching east of the Urals nearly to the Pacific Ocean; and far eastern Russia, including the extreme southeast and Pacific coast. Russia's capital and largest city is Moscow.

   European Russian is primarily a rocky, rolling plain with broad marshes. Its southern border includes the Caucasus Mountains, which extend between the Black and Caspian seas. While the winters may be cool along the Black Sea coast, this part of Russia has a much more temperate climate than Siberia, where temperatures average -59°F in January and have reached as cold as 90 degrees below zero.