Tourism in Russia

Content of the work:

1. Geographical position and climate of the Russian Federation

2. History of the country

3. Russian economics. Economic indicators

4. Tourism in modern Russia

5. Moscow city

6. Russian tourist resources

7. The main tourist indicators of Russia

Russia, also officially known as the Russian Federation, is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both with Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the world's ninth most populous nation with 143 million people as of 2012. Extending across the entirety of northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans nine time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms.

1. Geographical position and climate of the Russian Federation Territory of the Russian Federation

With a total area of 17 million square kilometers, Russia is the largest country in the world. It spans two continents (Europe and Asia) and borders Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic countries to the west, Finland to the north, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Mongolia and China to the south, and North Korea to the east. The United States and Japan are not far from the eastern coast of Russia.

The extreme northernmost point of the country's mainland is Cape Fligely on Rudolf Island of Franz Josef Land archipelago; the southernmost point is located in the Republic of Dagestan on the border with Azerbaijan. The distance between the western and the eastern borders of Russia is 9,000 km (from the Vistula Spit in Kaliningrad Bay to Cape Dezhnev in Chukotka); the easternmost point is Rotmanov Island in the Bering Strait. Thus, Russia's territory spans over 4,000 km from north to south, and almost 10,000 km from west to east.

Russia has the longest border in the world, a total of 60,932 km, including 38,808 km of maritime borders (in the north and east) and 14,508 of land borders (in the south and west). Russia borders Kazakhstan (6,846 km), China (3,645 km), Mongolia (3,485 km), Ukraine (1,576 km), Finland (1,340 km), Belarus (959 km), Georgia (723 km), Estonia (294 km), Azerbaijan (284 km), Lithuania (280.5 km), Poland (232 km), Latvia  (217 km), Norway (196 km), and North Korea (19 km).

Russia has about 120,000 rivers over 10 kilometers long. The total length of these rivers is 2.3 million kilometers. The largest rivers are the Ob, Irtysh, Yenisey, Amur, and  Volga in the European part of the country. There are about 2 million freshwater and salt lakes in Russia. The largest lakes are Lake Baikal (which holds about 20% of the world's total freshwater supply, not counting the fresh water frozen in the polar ice caps and glaciers), Lake Ladoga, Lake Onega, and Lake Taimyr.

The forest zone covers 41% of Russia's plainlands; the share of the forest-steppe zone is 11.2% and the tundra forest belt 20.5%.

The coasts of Russia are washed by 12 seas of three ocean basins: the Atlantic Ocean (the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov), the Arctic Ocean (the Barents Sea, the White Sea, the Kara Sea, the Laptev Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchee Sea) and the Pacific Ocean (the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan), as well the Caspian Sea, which is a closed basin.