Extending nearly halfway around the Northern Hemisphere and covering much of eastern and

northeastern Europe and all of northern Asia, Russia has a maximum east-west extent of some 5,600
miles (9,000 km) and a north-south width of 1,500 to 2,500 miles (2,500 to 4,000 km). There is an
enormous variety of landforms and landscapes, which occur mainly in a series of broad latitudinal belts.
Arctic deserts lie in the extreme north, giving way southward to the tundra and then to the forest zones,
which cover about half of the country and give it much of its character. South of the forest zone lie the
wooded steppe and the steppe, beyond which are small sections of semidesert along the northern shore
of the Caspian Sea. Much of Russia lies at latitudes where the winter cold is intense and where
evaporation can barely keep pace with the accumulation of moisture, engendering abundant rivers,
lakes, and swamps. Permafrost covers some 4 million square miles (10 million square km)—an area
seven times larger than the drainage basin of the Volga River, Europe’s longest river—making
settlement and road building difficult in vast areas. In the European areas of Russia, the permafrost
occurs in the tundra and the forest-tundra zone. In western Siberia permafrost occurs along the Yenisey
River, and it covers almost all areas east of the river, except for south Kamchatka province, Sakhalin
Island, and Primorsky Kray (the Maritime Region).