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The Russian Federation is a transcontinental country extending over much of northern Eurasia. Russia shares land borders with the following countries: Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Abkhazia, Georgia, South Ossetia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea. It also borders the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Caspian Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Black Sea. Russia is close to the United States (Alaska) and Japan.

At 17,075,400 square kilometers (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than an eighth of the Earth’s land area; with 142 million people, it is the ninth largest by population. Russia has the world's greatest reserves of mineral and energy resources, and is considered an energy superpower. It has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's unfrozen fresh water.

The Russian Federation with its topography, its climates, vegetation, and soils span vast distances. From north to south the East European Plain is clad sequentially in tundra, coniferous forest (taiga), mixed and broad-leaf forests, grassland (steppe), and semi-desert (fringing the Caspian Sea) as the changes in vegetation reflect the changes in climate.

Pic. 36. Central Russian Upland, Zaraysk Pic. 37. Sochi, Krasnodar Krai

Pic. 38. The plains of Western Siberia, Vasyugan River, Tomsk Oblast

Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and is known as “the lungs of Europe”. It provides a huge amount of oxygen for not just Europe, but the world. With access to three of the world's oceans — the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific — Russian fishing fleets are a major contributor to the world's fish supply. The Caspian is the source of what is considered the finest caviar in the world.

Pic. 39. Saranpaul, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug

Mountain ranges are found along the southern borders, such as the Caucasus (containing Mount Elbrus, Russia's and Europe's highest point at 5,642 m / 18,511 ft) and the Altai, and in the eastern parts, such as the Verkhoyansk Range or the volcanoes on Kamchatka. The Ural Mountains form a north-south range that divides Europe and Asia, rich in mineral resources. Russia possesses 10% of the world's arable land.

Russia has thousands of rivers and inland bodies of water, providing it with one of the world's largest surface water resources. The largest and most prominent of Russia's bodies of fresh water is Lake Baikal, the world's deepest, purest, most ancient and most capacious freshwater lake. Other major lakes include Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega, two largest lakes in Europe. Of Russia's 100,000 rivers, The Volga is the most famous—not only because it is the longest river in Europe but also because of its major role in Russian history. Europe's big­gest river, the Volga, flows into the Caspian Sea. The main Si­berian rivers (the Ob, the Yenisei and the Lena) flow from the south to the north. The Amur in the Far East flows into the Pa­cific Ocean.

On the vast territory of the country there are various types of climate. It ranges from the Arctic north to the generally temperate south. In the middle of the country the climate is temperate and continental.