Russia is the largest country in the world occupying more than half of the European continent (its Eastern part) and the North-East of Asia. This country stretches 2,500-4,000 km from north to south and another 9,000 km from west to east. Russia's westernmost point is located on the Polish border; its easternmost point is situated on Ratmanov Island (Bering Straits). The southernmost point is located on the Russian-Azeri border, and the northernmost point is on Franz-Josef Land islands. It has an area of 10, 672,000 sq. miles (17,075,200 sq.km).

Russia is spread over all climatic zones except tropical. West of the Ural mountains from the Black Sea in the South to the Arctic Ocean lies a broad plain with low hills where the historical core of the Russian nation is located. East of the Urals from the border with Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia to the Arctic coast lies Siberia - a scarcely populated area covered by coniferous forest, swamps and tundra in the north and mountainous terrain in the south. It takes over 8 hours by plane to reach from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast.

Russia has state borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine in the West, with Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, Korea (People’s Democratic Republic of Korea) in the South. The Russian shores are surrounded by the Arctic Ocean in the North, by the Baltic Sea in the West, by the Black, Azov and Caspian Seas in the South, and finally by the Pacific Ocean and its Bering, Okhotsk and Japanese Seas.

The climate is mostly continental, with average January temperatures ranging from 0 to minus five degrees Centigrade in Western European Russia to minus 40-50 degrees Centigrade in east Yakutia (Sakha Republic). Average July temperatures range from plus one degree Centigrade on the northern Siberian coast to plus 24-25 degrees Centigrade in Russia's CisCaspian lowland. Some 150-2,000 mm of precipitation fall annually on Russian territory.

Russia abounds in mineral resources whose total potential value (in world prices) is estimated at an impressive $30 trillion. Russia produces 17 per cent of the world's crude oil, as well as 25-30 per cent of its natural gas, 6 per cent of all bituminous coal, 17 per cent of commercial iron ore and 10-20 per cent of all non-ferrous, rare and noble metals mined across the globe.
The largest oil-and-gas deposits are to be found in Western and Eastern Siberia and on Sakhalin Island.
The list of Russian mineral deposits includes gold, silver, platinum, cobalt, antimony, zinc, mercury, and many others. Russian mineral resources are distributed rather evenly along the nation's territory. For instance, copper-and-nickel ores are mined in the Northern Caucasus, the Urals, Siberia and the Kola Peninsula.

Russia has the world's fifth largest population (148.8 million people) after China, India, the United States and Indonesia. More than 100 nations live in the country: Russians account for 81.5%; Tatars: 3.8%; Ukrainians: 3%; Chuvashes: 1.2%; Bashkirs: 0.9%; Belorussian: 0.8%; Mordvinians: 0.7%; Germans and Chechens: 0.6% each; Avars, Armenians, Jews: 0.4% each; and some other additions. All in all, 73 per cent of Russian citizens live in urban areas.

The Russian Federation has 1,067 major cities, with 13 of them inhabited by one million and more people each. The largest cities are Moscow (the capital of the country), St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg.