Geography of the Soviet Union

The geography of the Soviet Union includes the geographic features of the countries of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Soviet Union was the largest country in the world, covering approximately one sixth of the earth's land surface. It was two and a half times the size of the United States, and only slightly smaller in land area than the entire continent of North America. It covered most of the northern half of Asia and a large part of Eastern Europe, extending even into the Middle East. About one quarter of its territory was in Europe, and the rest in Asia. The territory of the USSR was dominated by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic—having the same borders as contemporary Russia—which covered roughly three quarters of the surface area of the union.

The USSR had a geographic centre further north than any other independent country except Canada, Iceland, Finland, and the countries of Scandinavia, as about three quarters of the country was above the 50th parallel north.

The country's 22,402,200 square kilometers included one-sixth of the Earth's land surface. Its western portion, more than half of all Europe, made up just 25 percent of the Soviet Union; this, however, was where the overwhelming majority (about 72 percent) of the people lived and where most industrial and agricultural activities are concentrated. It was here, roughly between the Dniepr River and the Ural Mountains, that the Russian Empire took shape and gradually over centuries expanded to the Pacific Ocean and into Central Asia.

The Soviet Union had the longest borders of any country, extending 60,000 km (37,000 mi). The Soviet Union measured some 10,000 kilometers from Kaliningrad on Gdańsk Bay in the west to Ratmanova Island (Big Diomede Island) in the Bering Strait - the rough equivalent of the distance from Edinburgh, Scotland, westwards to Nome, Alaska. From the tip of the Taymyr Peninsula on the Arctic Ocean to the Central Asian town of Kushka near the Afghan border extended almost 5,000 kilometers of mostly rugged, inhospitable terrain. The east-west expanse of the continental United States would easily have fitted between the northern and southern borders of the Soviet Union at their extremities.

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